Bahrain face shortage of family physicians

Manama : There is an acute shortage of family physicians in Bahrain, opined Dr Faisal Al Nasir, who is the chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at College of Medicine & Medical Sciences, the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) in Bahrain. 

He was speaking to DT News yesterday on the occasion of the World Family Doctor Day 2016 celebration on the AGU campus. 

 “Family medicine, a specialty devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages, is the cornerstone of any health system,” said Dr Al Nasir. “It provides an integrated care that is continuous, personal and focuses on developing the patient-physician relationship. Unlike other specialties that are limited to a particular organ or disease, family medicine is person-centred rather than disease-centred and integrates care for patients of all genders and age.”

“Family physicians take care of the whole family members from their childhood to the elderly stages by providing continuous health and medical care. Hence, they become more or less like a friend to the family. They know every member of the family and the family members rely on them whenever they have any problem. Because of their extensive training, family physicians are the only specialists qualified to treat most ailments and provide comprehensive health care for people of all ages– from newborns to the elderly,” he added.

Approximately there are around 450 qualified family doctors in Bahrain now, but that is less than the required figures, he pointed out. 

Like other medical specialists, family physicians complete a four-year residency programme after graduating from medical school. As part of their residency, they participate in integrated inpatient and outpatient learning and receive training in six major medical areas: paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, internal medicine, psychiatry and neurology, surgery, and community medicine. They also receive instruction in many other areas including geriatrics, emergency medicine, ophthalmology, radiology, orthopaedics, otolaryngology, urology and psychosocial sciences.

How to overcome shortage? 

“My suggestion to increase the number of family physicians in Bahrain is by increasing the intake of resident doctors in the family medicine training programmes. Probably, we should think seriously of structuring an extra training programme in order to increase the output of family physicians because the population of Bahrain is increasing and hence there is a need to match the demand for qualified physicians,” Dr Al Nasir suggested. 

“In my opinion, there are enough training facilities in Bahrain. The number of health centres are adequate and they are well-equipped to provide excellent training programmes in the country. 

“If we take the Arab world, it has a total population amounting to 422 million,” he explained, “And if we take the optimal family doctor to population ratio which is 1 to every 1,800 person, the Arab world is in an immediate need for 200,000 well-trained and qualified family physicians. However, the current figures do not exceed 10,000. So there is a severe mismatch between the requirement and availability of family doctors.” 

 Al Nasir pointed out that the Arab world is lucky to have a strong academic body such as the Arab Board for Health Specialisations, which supervises training programmes in various medical specialties including family medicine and certifies qualified doctors.