General Practitioner (GP)
Content
Description
General Practitioner (GP) or medical doctor in general practice is a doctor who serves as the first point of contact for patients in the healthcare system, provides also long-term health care to patients:
- Keeps a patient's card
- Diagnose and treat common health problems
- Has overview of all the patient's diseases, previous surgeries, vaccinations and hospitalizations in the hospital
- Coordinates treatment with specialists
- Takes blood and urine for laboratory tests
- Prescribes medications
- Refers patients to specialists
Facts
- Examination in an outpatient clinic
- Examination lasts 30 minutes
A general practitioner is a specialist with licence (registration) from Health Professions Council of South Africa.
Optimal specialization in Family Medicine leads to registration with the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa.
During the first examination, the general practitioner creates a patient-record, where all previous illnesses, surgeries and hospital stays are recorded. Also information about allergies and medications are taken.
Examinations that the general practitioner performs:
- Measurement of blood pressure, pulse, temperature
- Examination of the lungs and breathing (listens with a stethoscope)
- Palpation of the abdominal organs
- Samples: blood and urine for examination
- ECG - Electrocardiography of the heart
From these basic examinations, the doctor finds out a surprising amount of information about the patient's clinical condition.
General practitioner provides many important tasks :
- General medical advice
- Preventive examination and screening - prevention can diagnose diseases at an early stage, when the disease can be treated more easily. Preventive check-ups should be performed once every 2 years
- Long-term care - monitoring and adjusting treatment of chronic illnesses
- Prescription of medications
- Vaccination and revaccination of patients
- Serves as gatekeeper to specialist and hospital services
- Collects a discharge reports from the hospital
