ISSN: 2639-2038
Authors: Turabian JL*
This article aims to show and reflect on the specific implications and contributions that general medicine offers to the field of epidemiology, and that they have not been sufficiently theorized systematically. Several specific areas of epidemiology can be conceptualized. Morphology: the form of epidemiology in general medicine and its evolution. The continued attention throughout the years of the general practitioner (GP) is a task of "naturalist" or "ethnographer" that performs a qualitative study. This presents a unique opportunity to study natural history of a disease, and allows a specific form of screening: opportunistic detection or "case finding", taking advantage of patient visits. Distribution: the configuration and structuring of the phenomena related to health and its determinants in specific populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems. It implies the longitudinal and vertical vision that GP has about health / disease. The longitudinal view allows you to know the "numerator" and the "denominator" to obtain epidemiologic data. Vertical vision is based on family focus care, from the beginning of the life cycle to death. Ethology: the behavior of epidemiology. It is used variables limited in number, but significant and basic, which implies a common sense which comes from ordinary experience. Ecology: the relationships of living beings with each other and with the environment in which they live. It implies an emphasis in the simplification, the simplicity and the economy of means and techniques for the solution of scientific puzzles. It is confronted scientific problems from a completely different angle from that of other scientific fields. Therefore, general medicine faces epidemiological problems from a completely different angle than other medical fields and their epidemiological concepts are different. "The Pampa is much more than a bunch of grass", and under that bright mantle of grass, and in the forests of dry and brittle stems, the amount of living beings is extraordinary. But you can be there all your life without noticing it. It is necessary to be there and know how to look. There is practical epidemiology beyond academic epidemiology; this is the contribution of general medicine to epidemiology.
Keywords: General Practice; Epidemiology; Preventive Medicine; Anticipatory Care; Continuity of Patient Care; Natural History of Disease; Prevalence; Qualitative Research; Family; Ethnography
