Canadian family physician Médecin de famille canadien
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Family medicine is a vital part of health care in Canada. The decline in numbers of new family physicians being trained bodes ill for a sustainable and efficacious health care system. We need to recruit young people more effectively into careers in primary care. Early outreach to high-school students is one approach that holds promise. ⋯ Physicians' visits to high-school students could be an effective way to increase interest in careers in rural family medicine.
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To document the potential for drug interactions in seniors with osteoarthritis and to consider the usefulness of computerized support for detecting clinically important interactions. ⋯ Risk of drug interactions in seniors might be high, but few interactions are clinically significant. Only 1 found in our study carried a recommendation for avoidance. The on-line program reported all significant interactions, but the high proportion of insignificant interactions (6 : 1) also reported could lead physicians to override computer-generated alerts.
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To review the evidence on prevention and management of childhood obesity and to offer suggestions for family physicians. ⋯ Family physicians have a role in promoting preventive measures and identifying and treating obesity-related comorbidity. Pediatric obesity is not an individual child's problem, but a problem that involves the whole family and the community. Recommending a healthy diet and increased physical activity and counseling families on behaviour change is the best approach to preventing and managing childhood obesity.
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To assess whether prescribing physicians advised female patients taking isotretinoin according to pregnancy prevention recommendations, whether women understood those recommendations, and whether women complied with recommendations to prevent pregnancy. ⋯ Female patients reported physicians did not always advise them according to recommendations concerning pregnancy prevention. Women understood the information received but did not fully comply. The extent of pregnancy prevention measures taken by physicians was linked to women's compliance. Further study exploring underlying reasons for women's noncompliance could provide information on changing such behaviour.
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To explore with seniors what influences their choice of medication for osteoarthritis. ⋯ Because seniors' choice of medications for osteoarthritis is often influenced by physicians' recommendations and distribution of free samples, further research into how distribution of free samples affects medication choices in family practice is needed.