What it is and why it’s important
Family Medicine is a clinical speciality that provides comprehensive (across all ages, gender, organ systems, and specialities), cost-effective and patient centred care. This field specialises on the patient and a family physician is a patient’s advocate.
Family Practice is well recognised in the developed countries and has been crucial in providing universal, affordable and accountable health care access to all sections of society. CMC recognised the need for this speciality and has been a pioneer in initiating an academic Department of Family Medicine.
The Family Physician is able to manage 80% of the presenting problems in a health centre. There is no limit in gender or age in this field. The patient is taken care of from the ‘cradle to the grave’ and the care includes preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative.
Since 1993, CMC has been running a Family Medicine course under the National Board of Examinations. In 2007, due to prescribed regulations the DNB had been discontinued.
Location
The faculty of the family medicine department provide clinical services in various primary and secondary care facilities. Primary care facilities are provided in the Citizen’s Clinic and the Red Cross Clinic. Secondary care facilities are at CHAD, LCECU and RUHSA.
The clinical services include daily outpatient clinics for all common illnesses and inpatient care for acute illnesses.
Special services include: diabetes mellitus clinic; rheumatic heart disease clinic; antenatal services for low and high risk women; delivery services; post -partum sterilization; immunisation clinic for the new born; psychiatric clinic; ENT clinic; dental clinic; home visits and mobile clinics.
There is a well linked referral system with the tertiary hospital for patients who need care at that level. Patients are referred back, after they receive specialist care, and continue routine care in the secondary clinical unit. The patients’ health care needs are co-ordinated by the department.
Family Medicine to open its 3rd health centre exclusively for people of Vellore
The CMC Diagnostic Centre at Sathuvachari is being upgraded into a health centre offering services exclusively to the people of Vellore. The ‘Shalom Family Medicine Centre’, complete with attending physicians, rooms for minor procedures, a full-fledged pharmacy, ECG facility and a blood collection facility will start functioning from the Ist of June.
Family Medicine specialists, who manage most health problems in a family across all age groups, will be available to see patients from Monday to Friday. The blood collection will facility will be available from 7 to 11 and the centre will function from 8 am to 3 pm to begin, with plans to extend it further in the near future.
Other facilities available include a treatment room for managing minor emergencies, minor trauma, dressings, injection and IV fluids and electronic medical records with records of all previous visits to CMC, including admissions. The blood collection facility collects samples at the centre and sends it to the main hospital laboratory for testing.
This is one of CMC’s three centres exclusively for the people of Vellore. The Low Cost Effective Care Unit in the Schell Eye hospital campus was started for the poor of the town in 1982 and the Shalom Family Medicine Centre near the Schell hospital in 2014 by the Department of Family Medicine.
