Family Medicine has been an independent Division in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine since 2001 and is involved in multidisciplinary community-based teaching, learning and research with a strong focus on primary care. Since 2022, we joined the Department of Family, Community and Emergency Care (FaCE). The new Division of Interdisciplinary Palliative Care & Medicine (IPCM) was also approved in 2021. The FaCE department consists of the Divisions of Family Medicine, IPCM, Emergency Medicine, the Primary Health Directorate, as well as Sports & Exercise Medicine (with Biokinetics). According to McWhinney & Freeman (2009), family physicians:
Are committed to the person rather than to a particular body of knowledge, group of diseases, or special technique;
Seek to understand the context of the illness;
See every contact with their patient as an opportunity for prevention or health education;
View the patients in their practice as a population at risk;
See themselves as part of a community-wide network of supportive and healthcare agencies;
Should ideally share the same habitat as their patients;
See patients in their homes;
Attach importance to the subjective aspects of medicine;
Manage resources.
[Reference: Textbook of Family Medicine: Ian R. McWhinney; Thomas Freeman (Third Edition) 2009 Oxford University Press pages 13-16.]
Teaching within the Division
Undergraduate programme:
Becoming a Doctor course which spans the second and third years of the curriculum. The course comprises of three strands which include Family Medicine, Clinical Skills and Languages (isiXhosa and Afrikaans). Eight week 4th year MBChB Primary Health Care block run jointly with other divisions in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine. Four week 6th year block which students spend at a Community Health Facility either in an urban or rural area and at a Hospice for the Palliative Care portion of their training. The discipline of Family Medicine was registered as a speciality in 2007 and we accepted our first intake of registrars into the MMed (Family Medicine) training programme in 2008. The registrars do their training at regional, secondary and district level facilities. We also offer a postgraduate diploma course and PhD programme in Family Medicine. The Division is involved in many individual and collaborative research projects. There is strong collaboration with all academic departments of Family Medicine in South Africa through the Education and Training Sub-Committee of the South African Academy of Family Physicians and the College of Family Physicians in the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. It has established links with other African universities as well as with other international higher education institutions. Family practitioners in private practice also assist with the teaching programme.
