ID-5184 Wonca Abstracts supplement L-Z 13-10-23 - Flipbook - Page 46
WONCA 2023 Supplement 2: WONCA 2023 abstracts (L–Z)
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A survey on the knowledge of family medicine specialty
among the Puerto Rican population
Dr Glorymar López Garayúa1,2, Zullimary Rodríguez Galarza1,2, Maritza Muir, Kevin Buenahora1,2,
Sergio Delgado1,2
1
Mayagüez Medical Center, 2Ponce Health Science University
In 1971, the Puerto Rican Chapter of General Practitioners changed its name to the American
Academy of Family Physicians, which was done to distinguish between non-specialised ‘generalist’
physicians and specialised family physicians. Puerto Rico is unique when compared to the mainland
United States in that 50.3% of the island’s practising physicians are non-specialised physicians.
Less than 3% of physicians in Puerto Rico are family medicine physicians. Our premise is that the
vast majority of the Puerto Rican population do not know the scope of practice of a family medicine
physician, in part because of the perception that family physicians are non-specialised. On an island
that is in critical shortage of specialised primary care physicians, like paediatricians and OBGYN, it is
paramount to know that, if indeed, our premise is correct – that the vast majority of the Puerto Rican
population does not know the full scope of practice of a family medicine physicians. Then, the Family
Medicine Academy of Puerto Rico along with local and state officials can perhaps implement an
educational campaign on the scope of our practice so as to cover other specialities that are in critical
shortage on the island, like paediatricians. The purpose of this survey is to determine the current
general knowledge of our speciality in family medicine in Puerto Rico.
We conducted an observational cross-sectional study which consisted of a total of 592 participants.
There is no association between knowing a family medicine physician and the knowledge that they
are specialists. There is a direct relationship of having a higher education level and having a better
understanding of family medicine with a statistically significant value of P < 0.0001.
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