Wonca Istambul 2006.

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Ideally we care for people from their birth until they die. For most patients that is not the case – we die before them! But in my 25 years as a rural GP I followed 3 generations in the same family, and experienced the death of one and saw the birth of another. Saw how the health problems and even the way they were present repeated it self. In some families I got to know more about the family history than they themselves knew about it. I knew about the family secrets, which were carried from one doctor to the next by word of mouth, and never written down. Information which could be crucial to have in order to deliver the best possible care for the individual. This was especially important for our patients with mental health problems. These patients are not many for each GP, but they take a lot of our time because it is not only the patient who needs our help. It is as much the family around the patient. In the beginning of the mental problem, things are very difficult because the symptoms may not resemble anything – the health problem can not be described at an entity – only as symptoms. How can we describe this? How can we document this information, without mis-labelling the patient?    

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Created 16/05/2016 - Last modified 20/12/2017