Family Medicine Specialty, A Necessity in Today's Iranian society

Family medicine is an interdisciplinary medical specialty. In this study, the characteristics of curriculum and training course of this field in different countries is presented and the efforts to establish this specialized field in Iran are described. In this descriptive study, the characteristics of the training program, working hours, the amount of income, benefits and duration of program in different countries were evaluated. This specialty was introduced in 1969 for the first time as the 20th independent specialty in the United States. The purpose of this specialty is training of specialized physicians to provide personal, comprehensive and continuing health care for individual who are covered in the context of family and community. In fact, this field encompasses comprehensive health and medical care delivered by the specialist for all diseases, all body organs and in all ages. This field focuses on health promotion, disease prevention and improvement of lifestyle. Duration of training program of this specialty is between 3 to 5 years in most countries. Canada has the shortest training period which is 2 years.In Iran for the better response to the needs of the public health, the field of family medicine was established by a number of Iranian medicine universities including Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in 2009 for the first time. The training of this specialty in this country is based on a combination of synchronous and virtual learning. Training of this specialty is offered in the form of master of public health (MPH), while a 5-year clinical residency curriculum has been developed though it has not been implemented. All countries define their required medical expertise with respect to their health policy and strategies as well as needs of healthcare system, economic status and social background. In Iran, according to the reform and evolution of the health system and the necessity of implementation of referral system in healthcare to provide specialized care to different levels of the community, attention to the fully development of the specialty of family medicine is more crucial than ever.