Zeitschrift für Forschung und Entwicklung im Bereich Gesundheitserziehung

Family Medicine Models in Jordan

Abstract

Amjad Al Shdaifat

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 we 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 we have many models of family medicine training.Family Medicine specialty residency program is the ideal form of family medicine, we have a well formed residency program at Ministry of health, where residents have 3 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 we 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 9 months, untested and under development good alternative once validated and can build capacity of ordinary general practionners (GP) who cannot enroll in family medicine program but in its best, can enroll 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. Result : Each Model has its advantages and shortages and need more evaluation studies.