You can think of the primary care doctor as your trusted first point of contact when you have a medical concern. They are the leader of your healthcare team. Primary care doctors are experts in you. They specialize in integrating all the aspects of what you need to not just survive in life, but to thrive. Those aspects include care for diagnosing and treating, new problems, care for complex medical conditions, urgent care, preventative care, mental and behavioral health, coordinating and navigating your care in the larger healthcare system, and health education and coaching. They are your trusted partner in achieving optimal health in life.
Becoming a primary care doctor is a long and rigorous education process. It requires 11 years of extensive and intense training. The training starts with completing a 4-year bachelor’s degree, then achieve a high score on the medical college entrance exam call the MCAT, and be accepted to medical school. Medical school is an additional 4 years of training comprised of 2 years of classroom education and 2 years of clinical training in both the hospital and the medical office settings. After graduating from medical school, medical students receive their doctorate in medicine which is an MD or osteopathic medicine which is a DO. After medical school doctors apply for residency which gives them an additional training in either a surgical specialty or a medical specialty.
Primary care doctors do a 3-year medical residency in either Family Medicine, Internal Medicine or Pediatrics. After doing an internal medicine or pediatric residency doctors can further specialize in one organ system like cardiology or pulmonology after which they are referred to as a specialist. Alternatively they can choose to begin practicing as a primary care doctor for adults or kids. Doctors who graduate from family medicine residencies are trained to care for all age groups from birth to the elderly.
During medical school and residency primary care doctors must take and pass three exams to get their medical license. The first exam assesses competency and the sciences and is 8 hours over the course of a day. The second exam assesses competency in clinical knowledge and is 9 hours over the course of one day. The 3rd exam assesses whether the doctor is capable of practicing independently and is 7 hours in the first day and 9 hours in the second day. Once the doctors pass all three exams they are licensed to practice medicine and then must maintain continuing educations and pass an exam every 10 years to keep board certification.
I hope this has helped you in understanding what a primary care doctors is. In my next video I’ll talk about why everyone needs to have a primary care doctor.
