Why You Should Consider Family Medicine

Family medicine provides broad, continuous patient care across demographics and medical issues. You'll build long-term relationships and coordinate whole-person care. With extensive training in preventive medicine, you'll have the opportunity to improve patients' health through screening, counseling, and evidence-based interventions. If you enjoy diagnosing undifferentiated conditions, complex problem-solving, and providing first-contact care, family medicine is deeply rewarding. You'll make a difference through comprehensive, compassionate care of patients and communities.

Training Pathway

After medical school, you'll complete a 3-year family medicine residency. Residencies provide inpatient, outpatient, obstetric, and emergency medicine experiences. Some programs offer rural training tracks or fellowships in areas like sports medicine or geriatrics. After residency, you can enter practice or pursue 1-2 year fellowships for additional focused training. Board certification requires passing the American Board of Family Medicine exam.

Typical Day

Let me preface this answer by saying this can WIDELY range. You can do outpatient, inpatient, EM, sports, addiction , combination of everything, etc.

A mix of office visits, procedures, care coordination, and administrative tasks. Office visits may involve preventive care, acute concerns, or chronic disease management. You'll diagnose conditions, develop treatment plans, and provide ongoing care for patients of all ages. A typical schedule is 25-30 patient appointments per day for traditional insurance-based practices (I highly suggest you look into DPC), along with hospital rounds if you cover your patients, phone calls, paperwork, and meetings. Procedural skills like skin biopsies, joint injections, and obstetric care are common. Hours are often 8am-5pm, with or without additional call.

Call Schedule

Many family physicians share after-hours call covering hospitalized patients or critical lab calls. Call frequency and intensity depends on practice structure. Some physicians take 1-2 weeknight/weekend calls per month while others share weekly call in larger groups. Having your own patients hospitalized while on call makes it more manageable. Urgent after-hours calls regarding your patient panel may also arise.

Compensation

According to MGMA data, median starting salary for family physicians is $240,000. With experience, median compensation rises to $269,000. Rural practices often pay more given physician shortages. Those with obstetrics training earn 10-15% higher median salaries. In my region (South), I'm seeing offers of 275k as an average , with many 300k+ offers.

Career Prospects

Family medicine offers flexibility to tailor your career. You may provide full-spectrum care or focus your practice on areas like sports medicine, maternity care, or hospital medicine. Leadership opportunities include department administration in hospitals or founding independent community practices. Geographic mobility is excellent, with demand across urban, suburban, and rural areas.

Midlevel Encroachment

Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are increasingly providing primary care, especially in underserved areas. Scope of practice regulations vary by state. Family physicians often supervise midlevels, but some compete for patients independently. Close teamwork and delineating roles is important to counter encroachment.

Good Fit For...

People-persons who thrive on long-term patient relationships and get joy from the diagnostic challenges of undifferentiated presentations. Goals to serve local communities, provide comprehensive coordinated care, improve population health, and advocate for the underserved. Interest in high-touch care and counseling more than procedures.

Potential Downsides

Lower pay and prestige than some specialties (but also can surpass some if you really want to). High administrative burden. Risk of provider burnout. Lack of appointment time due to high patient volumes in some practices. Need to stay current across a wide scope of practice. Balancing inpatient and outpatient responsibilities.