4 Questions to Ask Your Family Doctor

Family medicine doctors specialize in providing lifelong care for you and your family. Family doctors are experts in diagnosing and treating the entire body and are your first point of contact with the health care system. They care for patients everywhere: in the office, the hospital, other health care facilities, or the patient’s home. Unlike other medical doctors who specialize in a specific type of disease or a particular part of the body, family medicine physicians provide comprehensive care to patients of all ages and genders throughout all stages of life. They treat a very vast variety of different health conditions.

Adults have the choice between a family medicine doctor and an internal medicine doctor as their primary care physician. In several ways, these types of doctors are similar: Their common goal is to help you protect and improve your health. However, there are differences in their training and the types of patients they see.

The difference between an internal medicine physician and a family practitioner is that an internist cares for adults and a family practitioner is both a pediatrician and internist amalgamated into one specialty and cares for both adults and children. While internists generally diagnose and treat medical problems of greater complexity than family practitioners, family practitioners typically provide more ‘well-patient’ services like check-ups in the office setting and don’t treat as many hospitalized patients.

Internal Medicine
Internists are doctors specializing in internal medicine, a discipline centered on the care of adults with the use of the best medical science available in caring for patients in the context of thoughtful, meaningful doctor-patient relationships.
Much of their medical training and education is dedicated to learning how to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases that affect adults. This extensive training qualifies them to practice internal medicine. Internists are occasionally referred to as a “doctor’s doctors,” because they are often requested to act as consultants to other physicians to help solve puzzling diagnostic problems.

Family Practice
Family medicine is a medical practice devoted to comprehensive health care for people of all ages. The specialist is referred to as a family physician or family doctor. This name underlines the holistic nature of this specialty, as well as its relation and significance in the family. Family practices are a division of primary health care that provides comprehensive health care for each individual and family spanning all ages, backgrounds, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. Family physicians are many times primary care physicians. This practice is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, focusing on disease prevention and health promotion. The matters of values underlying this practice are usually known as primary care ethics.

If you and your family are in need of a family medicine physician, please contact our office to get in touch with a family doctor today. We serve patients from Naperville IL, Plainfield IL, Joliet IL, Romeoville IL, Shorewood IL, Crest Hill IL, and Aurora IL.