What Are the Benefits of Having a Family Doctor?

Family medicine is not like other specialties of medicine. Many specialists will focus on a particular part of the body, organs, or diseases. Family physicians are qualified to treat a wide range of diseases and ailments. They provide comprehensive health care for people at every stage of life, from newborns to mature people.

Family care requires caring for people regardless of age or health condition. It requires the need to understand community-level and social factors that have an effect on health. Family medicine serves as the point of health care contact for patients. Family doctors often help people navigate the healthcare system, including understanding access to specialists and hospital care.

Family doctors treat a wide range of diseases. The diseases that family doctors treat the most often are the ones that are most common in society.  Family doctors will treat things like bronchitis, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, migraines and headaches, asthma, bladder infections, sinus and respiratory infections. They also help with those things in life that happen accidentally, like cuts, broken bones, sprains, burns, toe fungus, and those dreaded STIs. 

Family doctors can also help with preventative medicine, like the vaccines that are needed for many areas of life, like starting school or maybe going on vacation to another part of the world.

A family doctor will also help people manage chronic conditions. Diseases like asthma, high blood pressure, heart disease, or diabetes require ongoing care. The family doctor is often well versed in how to deal with these and is very good at having the long-term relationships that come with these types of diseases.

A family doctor is someone who will get to know you over time. As they get to know you better, they know how to treat you better.

There are 5 excellent benefits to having a family doctor.

1. Family doctors follow your life cycle. Family doctors work with people throughout the course of their life, from newborns to seniors. One family doctor may see a person for decades. They become the ones people trust for their first contact with health care. They build lasting relationships, which makes them easier to trust.

2. They know your personal and family history. When a doctor sees you for years, they get to know all about your medical history. This makes it easier for them to make accurate diagnoses and diagnose medications that will work better for you, personally. It is not uncommon for a family doctor to see members of the same family for many years, which gives them an even better understanding of what factors impact your health.

Medical history is important, but sometimes it is important to what is happening at home. This kind of information helps to address the needs of a patient even better.

3. Family doctors treat more than you think. While they do your yearly check-up or work physical, they help you manage those ongoing health concerns, like diabetes, heart disease, or arthritis. They help with those illnesses that are acute like bronchitis or injuries. Sometimes they just help us with the troubling things like removing a wart or getting rid of a pesky fungus.

4. They will help you find a good specialist. When your needs become more serious, the family doctor will know where to send you. They have the connections for help when a serious condition like cancer affects a patient. They will even make the effort to find one that matches your personality since they know you well.

5. They improve lives and save money. A family doctor can be proactive in working with preventative health care. This reduces the need for other, more serious kinds of care. A family doctor who knows and sees someone regularly is more able to spot issues that can become critical and take care of them before they do. This reduces hospital visits and great costs to the patients.

The answer to this question is, everyone! Everyone can benefit from having a family doctor! The caring and compassionate medical professionals at Rocky Mount Medical would love to get to know you and your family.  Let us care for you! For more information, contact us or request an appointment! We are conveniently located at 804 English Road, Suite 100 Rocky Mount, NC 27804. We serve patients from Rocky Mount NC, Nashville NC, Westry NC, Dortches NC, Red Oak NC, and Sharpsburg NC.