Family medicine models in jordan

Abstract

 Primary care is the first gate for any successful health system, the strength of primary care will reflect the health of the population. The cornerstone of primary care is family medicine so many countries are search­ing for the ideal health system based on family medicine specialty and as authors have shortage of family medicine specialists globally and that shortage cannot be filled countries began to search for alternatives. And as Jordan has the same shortage of family medicine specialists they began to search for alternatives which may help improve primary care so they have many models of family medicine training. Family medicine specialty residency program is the ideal form of family medicine, they have a well formed residency program at Ministry of Health, where residents have three years training in hospital and the last year in a comprehensive health center with an established scientific program, another residency program at universities: Jordan University and Jordan University of Science and Technology, also they have training program at Military services, all these produce about 10% of the country requirement of family medicine specialists. Another form is mixed online Diploma of Family Medicine with cooperation with WHO and American University of Beirut, the program is for nine months, untested and under development good alternative once validated and can build capacity of ordinary general practitioners (GP) who cannot enrol in family medicine program but in its best, can enrol 10-20% of doctors. Another form is the one adopted by United Nations Relief and Working agency which is the family health approach in which they divided the working personnel in teams and each team is responsible for specific families, the clinics are leaded by ordinary GP and for the development of the staff they have done short course on family medicine and family medicine approach, then they began more professional training, online one year family medicine diploma. Each Model has its advantages and shortages and need more eval­uation studies.