Steven D Stovitz, Ian Shrier, Hailey R Banack, Jay S Kaufman
{"title":"In Defense of Generalists: Primary Care Observations Have Systematic Advantages.","authors":"Steven D Stovitz, Ian Shrier, Hailey R Banack, Jay S Kaufman","doi":"10.3122/jabfm.2024.240110R1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is a perception that physician specialists are the experts, and that generalists, often called primary care physicians, are the 'Jack of all trades, master of none.' However, this perception ignores the knowledge that comes from clinical observations, and it is here where the generalist viewpoint has advantages. Generalists observe patients before and after they develop medical concerns. In contrast, the clinical experiences of specialists are often focused on a subset of the population, typically based on certain concerns or age groups. Seeing only a slice of the population may lead to biased clinical perceptions for the effects of behaviors, conditions, or treatments in the general population. In this commentary we demonstrate that limiting clinical observations to patients who have a certain condition or are above a certain age can make exposures which are harmful seem beneficial, and exposures which are beneficial seem harmful. Using hypothetical examples, we illustrate that there are systematic reasons why generalists who see patients over the long-term, both before and after medical concerns, can have a more accurate vantagepoint.</p>","PeriodicalId":50018,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine","volume":"37 6","pages":"1133-1139"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2024.240110R1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is a perception that physician specialists are the experts, and that generalists, often called primary care physicians, are the 'Jack of all trades, master of none.' However, this perception ignores the knowledge that comes from clinical observations, and it is here where the generalist viewpoint has advantages. Generalists observe patients before and after they develop medical concerns. In contrast, the clinical experiences of specialists are often focused on a subset of the population, typically based on certain concerns or age groups. Seeing only a slice of the population may lead to biased clinical perceptions for the effects of behaviors, conditions, or treatments in the general population. In this commentary we demonstrate that limiting clinical observations to patients who have a certain condition or are above a certain age can make exposures which are harmful seem beneficial, and exposures which are beneficial seem harmful. Using hypothetical examples, we illustrate that there are systematic reasons why generalists who see patients over the long-term, both before and after medical concerns, can have a more accurate vantagepoint.
期刊介绍:
Published since 1988, the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine ( JABFM ) is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM). Believing that the public and scientific communities are best served by open access to information, JABFM makes its articles available free of charge and without registration at www.jabfm.org. JABFM is indexed by Medline, Index Medicus, and other services.