The Evolution of Family Medicine: A Focused Review

This focused review will trace the evolution of family medicine from an early orientation towards “general practice” to a broader and more comprehensive approach to delivering safe and effective medical services to individuals, families and communities over the lifespan. Beyond the initial focus on infectious disease, family medicine attempts to integrate relevant scientific findings from other medical fields as well as psychosocial and information science. Using such concepts as complex adaptive systems, a more mature and comprehensive synthesis may be achieved, allowing family medicine to be a leader in the ongoing efforts to improve medical care.

Keywords: Family medicine; Infectious Disease; Public Health; Health Psychology; Complex Adaptive Systems; Phase Transitions; Emergence; Self-Organization.