Review Article
Family Medicine in Saudi Arabia-Next Steps
Richard B Birrer*, Al-EnazyH and Sarru EDepartment of Medicine, St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Richard B Birrer
Department of Medicine
St. Joseph’s University Medical Center, USA
Tel: 516-671-6751
E-mail: rbbirrer@yahoo.com
Received date: February 19, 2014; Accepted date: March 17, 2014; Published date: March 19, 2014
Citation: Birrer RB, Al-Enazy H, Sarru E (2014) Family Medicine in Saudi Arabia- Next Steps. J Community Med Health Educ S2:005. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.S2-005
Copyright: © 2014 Birrer RB, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The increased prevalence of communicable, non-comunicable diseases, the global expanding of the elderly population, significant mental health issues,rising health costs,overutilization and medicalization of illnesses necessitate the need for a reliable community-based health care team. Efforts towards efficient, well organized family medicine speciality programs will produce needed, commited, and skilled primary care or family physicians that qualify them to provide continuous, comprehensive and accountable evidence-based health care for patients of all age groups. The Saudi Aramco Medical Services Organization (SAMSO), the first JCIA accredited hospital in the Middle East has taken significant strides to address the challenges facing the family medicine discipline.We aim through the following review to emphasize the role of family physicians, highlight some challenges globally and in Saudi Araba and provide list ofgeneral recommendations that would support the model.
