In the Name of Family Medicine: A Nationwide Survey of Registered Names of Family Medicine Clinics in Taiwan

Ya-An Liu, Sally Cheng, Ya-Chuan Hsu, Po-Chin Yang, Hsiao-Ting Chang, Ming-Hwai Lin, Tzeng-Ji Chen, Li-Fang Chou and Shinn-Jang Hwang
Additional contact information
Ya-An Liu: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Sally Cheng: Dr. Jiang’s Clinic, No.264, Wan-Da Road, Taipei 108, Taiwan
Ya-Chuan Hsu: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Po-Chin Yang: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Hsiao-Ting Chang: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Ming-Hwai Lin: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Tzeng-Ji Chen: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan
Li-Fang Chou: Department of Public Finance, National Chengchi University, Taipei 116, Taiwan
Shinn-Jang Hwang: Department of Family Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2, Shi-Pai Road, Taipei 112, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-7

Abstract: Family medicine is officially a specialty, but is often not regarded as a specialty by the general public. Past studies have usually investigated the opinions of medical students and resident physicians regarding family medicine, whereas few have focused on practicing family physicians themselves, especially in terms of analyzing how they represent themselves. This study aimed to investigate the patterns of clinic names to better apprehend whether general practitioners see themselves as being on an equal footing with other medical specialists. The registered names, medical specialties, and levels of urbanization of all clinics of Western medicine in Taiwan were collected. For clinics of each specialty, we examined whether their names contained the corresponding specialty designation. For example, a family medicine clinic was checked to determine whether its name contained the term “family medicine” or its abbreviation. The naming of family medicine clinics was then compared with that of clinics with other specialties. Of the 9867 Western medicine clinics included in this study, two-thirds ( n = 6592) were single-specialty clinics. In contrast to the high percentages of single-specialty clinics of other specialties with specialty-containing names (97.5% for ophthalmology, 94.8% for dermatology, and 94.7% for otolaryngology), only 13.3% (132/989) of the family medicine clinics had such names. In addition, the urban family medicine clinics had a higher proportion (15.2%, 74/487) of specialty-containing names than the suburban (12.6%, 44/349) and rural family medicine clinics (9.2%, 14/153). Overall, a low percentage of family medicine clinics in Taiwan included “family medicine” in their names. This issue of professional identity deserves further qualitative investigation.

Keywords: family medicine; clinics; names; professional identity; Taiwan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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