The socio-demographic profile of family physician graduates of blended-learning courses in India.

Context: India's lean cadre of 250,000 general practitioners and 30,000 government doctors has limited options to update themselves. Since 2006, Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore has run blended-learning programs in family medicine, namely, postgraduate diploma in family medicine (PGDFM) and master in medicine in family medicine (M.MED FM) training more than 3000 doctors.

Ensuring continuity of care by small family practices and clinics in the primary care setting during COVID 19 pandemic 2020 - A position paper by the Academy of Family Physicians of India.

The world is passing through a global pandemic of COVID 19. The number of positive cases has crossed over twenty thousand as of April 2020. Like everyone else, it is indeed a very challenging situation for family physicians and primary care providers as most of the guidelines presently have focused on screening, quarantine, isolation, and hospital-based management.

A family physician's journey in exploring sexual health perceptions and needs in a boarding school community.

Introduction And Context: Sexual health in schools is neglected in most developing countries, however, it is emerging as a major need of the hour. This article captures the author's experience as a family physician in a boarding school setting in India highlighting the need and possible solutions pertaining to sexual health in the school community.

Setting: An international boarding school in India with approximately 600 students, 500 teachers, and administrators who lived on the school campus and 500 support staff who lived off-campus.

A multicentric cross-sectional study to characterize the scale and impact of polypharmacy in rural Indian communities, conducted as part of health workers training.

Context: Polypharmacy and inappropriate medication usage is one of the world's most important public health issues. Yet in rural India, where medications are readily available, little is known about polypharmacy.

Aim: This study explores factors related to polypharmacy in rural India to inform the response.

Can credit systems help in family medicine training in developing countries? An innovative concept.

There is irrefutable evidence that health systems perform best when supported by a Family Physician network. Training a critical mass of highly skilled Family Physicians can help developing countries to reach their Millennium Development Goals and deliver comprehensive patient-centered health care to their population. The challenge in developing countries is the need to rapidly train these Family Physicians in large numbers, while also ensuring the quality of the learning, and assuring the quality of training.

"The Refer Less Resolve More" Initiative: A Five-year Experience from CMC Vellore, India.

India's one billion plus strong population presents huge health care needs. Presently, approximately 250,000 general practitioners and 30,000 Government doctors are a part of the Indian healthcare workforce, but 80% of them are based in urban India. Problems which plague healthcare delivery and attributed to physician practice may be enumerated as - physicians (1) lack competencies, (2) lack updating, (3) prescribe irrationally (pressures from pharmaceutical companies and patients), (4) practice unethically, (5) refer excessively to specialists and other clinical professionals, and (6) investigate for diseases without justification.