How to become Family Medicine Physician in 2024

Family Medicine Physician Diagnose, treat, and provide preventive care to individuals and families across the lifespan. May refer patients to specialists when needed for further diagnosis or treatment.

Family Medicine Physician is Also Know as

In different settings, Family Medicine Physician is titled as

  • Board Certified Family Physician
  • Family Medicine Physician
  • Family Physician
  • Family Practice Medical Doctor (FP MD)
  • Family Practice Physician (FP Physician)
  • Family Practitioner
  • Medical Doctor (MD)
  • Medical Staff Physician
  • Physician
  • Primary Care Physician

Education and Training of Family Medicine Physician

Family Medicine Physician is categorized in Job Zone Five: Extensive Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Family Medicine Physician

Extensive skill, knowledge, and experience are needed for these occupations. Many require more than five years of experience. For example, surgeons must complete four years of college and an additional five to seven years of specialized medical training to be able to do their job.

Education Required for Family Medicine Physician

Most of these occupations require graduate school. For example, they may require a master's degree, and some require a Ph.D., M.D., or J.D. (law degree).

Degrees Related to Family Medicine Physician

Training Required for Family Medicine Physician

Employees may need some on-the-job training, but most of these occupations assume that the person will already have the required skills, knowledge, work-related experience, and/or training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Family Medicine Physician in different industries are

What Do Family Medicine Physician do?

  • Prescribe or administer treatment, therapy, medication, vaccination, and other specialized medical care to treat or prevent illness, disease, or injury.
  • Order, perform, and interpret tests and analyze records, reports, and examination information to diagnose patients' condition.
  • Monitor patients' conditions and progress and reevaluate treatments as necessary.
  • Collect, record, and maintain patient information, such as medical history, reports, or examination results.
  • Explain procedures and discuss test results or prescribed treatments with patients.
  • Advise patients and community members concerning diet, activity, hygiene, and disease prevention.
  • Refer patients to medical specialists or other practitioners when necessary.
  • Direct and coordinate activities of nurses, students, assistants, specialists, therapists, and other medical staff.
  • Coordinate work with nurses, social workers, rehabilitation therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, and other health care providers.
  • Operate on patients to remove, repair, or improve functioning of diseased or injured body parts and systems.
  • Plan, implement, or administer health programs or standards in hospitals, businesses, or communities for prevention or treatment of injury or illness.
  • Train residents, medical students, and other health care professionals.
  • Prepare government or organizational reports which include birth, death, and disease statistics, workforce evaluations, or medical status of individuals.

Qualities of Good Family Medicine Physician

  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.

Tools Used by Family Medicine Physician

  • Adult Magill forceps
  • Angiocaths
  • Auditory testing equipment
  • Automated external defibrillators AED
  • Baby scales
  • Blood collection syringes
  • Cervical collars
  • Colposcopes
  • Cord clamps
  • Cryosurgical units
  • Dermal curettes
  • Desktop computers
  • Dictation equipment
  • Dressing forceps
  • Ear curettes
  • Ear forceps
  • Electrocardiography EKG machines
  • Electronic blood pressure units
  • Electronic stethoscopes
  • Electrosurgery units
  • Episiotomy scissors
  • Evacuated blood collection tubes
  • Fetal doppler units
  • Fetal monitors
  • Glucometers
  • Holter monitors
  • Infant warmers
  • Intravenous IV equipment
  • Laboratory specimen containers
  • Laptop computers
  • Laryngoscopes
  • Manual blood pressure units
  • Mechanical stethoscopes
  • Medical examination protective gloves
  • Medical lasers
  • Medical masks
  • Medical tuning forks
  • Microscope slides
  • Mosquito clamps
  • Nasogastric tubes
  • Neonatal airways
  • Neonatal resuscitation masks
  • Neurological hammers
  • Operating scissors
  • Ophthalmoscopes
  • Orthopedic splints
  • Otoscopes
  • Oxygen administration equipment
  • Oxygen masks
  • Patient airways
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Protective face shields
  • Pulse oximeters
  • Snellen eye charts
  • Spirometers
  • Splinter forceps
  • Suction catheters
  • Suction machines
  • Surgical gloves
  • Surgical scalpels
  • Suture forceps
  • Suture needles
  • Suture removers
  • Suture scissors
  • Tablet computers
  • Tourniquets
  • Ultrasound bone density scanners
  • Ultrasound imaging scanners
  • Umbilical cord scissors
  • Vacuum extractors
  • Vaginal exam speculas
  • Valve mask resuscitators
  • Vision screeners

Technology Skills required for Family Medicine Physician

  • Acrendo Medical Software Family Practice EMR
  • Allscripts Professional EHR
  • Billing software
  • Brickell Research Brickell Medical Office
  • ChartWare EMR
  • e-MDs software
  • e-MDs topsE&M Coder
  • eClinicalWorks EHR software
  • Email software
  • Epic Systems
  • Epocrates
  • Greenway Health PrimeSuite
  • Med Math
  • MedcomSoft Record
  • Medical procedure coding software
  • Medical reference software
  • MEDITECH software
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Misys Healthcare Systems Mysis Tiger
  • Practice management software PMS
  • Practice Partner Total Practice Partner
  • Scheduling software
  • SOAPware EMR
  • Web browser software