Family practice: professional identity in transition. A case study of family medicine in Canada

With increasingly fewer family physicians in many countries and students less interested in primary care careers, generalists are becoming an endangered species. This situation is a major health care resource management challenge. In a rapidly changing health care environment, family medicine is struggling for a clear identity - a matter which is crucial to health system restructuring because it affects the roles and functioning of other professions in the system.

Beaulieu MD, Rioux M, Rocher G, Samson L, Boucher L. Family practice: professional identity in transition. A case study of family medicine in Canada. Soc Sci Med. 2008 Oct;67(7):1153-63. Epub 2008 Jul 20