Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Apr 12;12(Suppl 3):e002789.
doi: 10.1136/fmch-2024-002789.

Storylines of family medicine II: foundational building blocks-context, community and health

William B Ventres  1 , Leslie A Stone  2 , Rupal Shah  3 , Tamala Carter  4 , Geoffrey M Gusoff  5 , Winston Liaw  6 , Bich-May Nguyen  6 , Joanna V Rachelson  7 , Mary Alice Scott  8   9 , Teresa L Schiff-Elfalan  10 , Seiji Yamada  10 , Robert C Like  11 , Kathleen Zoppi  12 , A Peter Catinella  13 , Richard M Frankel  14 , Shailendra Prasad  15
Affiliations

Storylines of family medicine II: foundational building blocks-context, community and health

William B Ventres et al. Fam Med Community Health. .

Abstract

Storylines of Family Medicine is a 12-part series of thematically linked mini-essays with accompanying illustrations that explore the many dimensions of family medicine, as interpreted by individual family physicians and medical educators in the USA and elsewhere around the world. In 'II: foundational building blocks-context, community and health', authors address the following themes: 'Context-grounding family medicine in time, place and being', 'Recentring community', 'Community-oriented primary care', 'Embeddedness in practice', 'The meaning of health', 'Disease, illness and sickness-core concepts', 'The biopsychosocial model', 'The biopsychosocial approach' and 'Family medicine as social medicine.' May readers grasp new implications for medical education and practice in these essays.

Keywords: Community Medicine; Family Medicine; Family Therapy; Health; Social Determinants of Health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Context: locating, understanding, being, caring.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Conceptualising community-centric practice. *Community collaborators: community organisers, leaders and organisations **Interdisciplinary care teams: physicians, nurses, social workers, care managers, community health workers and others.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Clinic structure: moving towards community presence and involvement. Adapted with permission.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Embeddedness in place and time: Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. Reproduced with permission.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Health: an ancestral view this graphic—a Hawaiian petroglyph of four people linking arms—reminds us that ‘health’ is informed as much by ancestral knowledge as by modern medicine. Reproduced with permission.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Disease versus illness versus sickness.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The biopsychosocial model.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The biopsychosocial approach.
Figure 9
Figure 9
Family Medicine … social medicine.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Context. Cambridge dictionary. Available: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/context [Accessed 31 Jan 2024].
    1. Braveman P, Gottlieb L. The social determinants of health: it’s time to consider the causes of the causes. Public Health Rep 2014;129:19–31. 10.1177/00333549141291S206 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. McCartney G, Hearty W, Arnot J, et al. . Impact of political economy on population health: a systematic review of reviews. Am J Public Health 2019;109:e1–12. 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305001 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. McGarvey D. Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass. Picador, 2017.
    1. Shah R, Foell J. Fighting for the Soul of General Practice: The Algorithm Will See You Now. Intellect, 2024.

LinkOut - more resources