Faisal Abdullatif Alnasir
Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain
Arab Board for Health Specializationsm, Bahrain
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Primary Health Care
The archaic Arab and Muslim physicians were utilizing holistic approach while practicing medicine. Avicenna, Alrazi and several others have been implementing the concepts of family medicine while caring for their patients. However, with the development and the disintegration of medicine into sundry specialties and sub-specialties such concept was disoriented overtime. Although during recent years and since Almata declaration many efforts have been made in the Arab countries to implement family medicine, such did not reach to the expected goals. Many Arab countries still do not believe family medicine while the few other who have commenced it are still struggling with the rigorous shortage of qualified family doctors. Realizing that family medicine should be the predicate of any health accommodation substratum and that 50% of the working physicians in any country should be constituted from family doctors, we can visually perceive why the health of the nation in many Arab countries are not reaching to the standard level. Such countries are not only suffering from re-emergence of few communicable diseases but they do suffer markedly from the consequences of the high prevalence of non-communicable illnesses as well. The Arab countries at the present moment is in exigent desideratum of around quarter of a million qualified Family Doctors, however statistics betoken that the available does not exceed few thousands. One of the best achievements of the Arab Health Ministers� council of the Arab league is the development of the Arab Board for Health specialties which was founded in 1978. However, not all the Arab countries are participating in its activities. Therefore, the Family & Community council since its establishment 28 years ago (in 1986) managed to graduate only 1567 FDs. In this article we highlight the quandary of FDs shortages in the Arab World and how it could be tackled.
Email: faisal@agu.edu.bh
