Preventive medicine in primary care

Abstract

Primary care physicians are in a unique position to offer preventive services. They have access to patients when intervention may be most successful, and they see most patients over a long period, which allows for adequate follow-up. The challenges are choosing the most effective interventions and organizing records and office staff to facilitate delivery of preventive services. Preventive medicine may not be as dramatic or as immediately successful as curative medicine, but it can have a tremendous long-term impact on health and well-being.