The Friendly New Family Doctors

It was 7:30 a.m., and Dr. Roger Bishop was already making his second stop of the day at the hospital in Marion, Ill., a small (pop. 13,000) coal-mining town in the southern part of the state. He had delivered a baby there in the predawn hours. Now, after a short nap, the 30-year-old physician was back for his regular morning rounds. At the bedside of an 88-year-old man who had wrenched his back in a fall, he offered the cheering words that he could go home the next day. Checking the condition of a 59-year-old housewife, he satisfied himself that she was recovering from the burns she received in a kitchen fire. In the maternity ward, he gave tips on bottle feeding to the woman whose baby he had just brought into the world.

Without even pausing for a cup of coffee, Bishop drove back to his office, where he began seeing patients: a construction worker with a sprained shoulder, an obese teen-ager trying to shed pounds, several elderly women with high blood pressure, a man with an inflamed prostate and a 25-year-old girl who had missed several periods. He inquired not only about his patients' health, but also about their families', carefully explained every diagnosis, answered all questions and charged only $10 for an office visit.

In an age of impersonal, high-fee specialization, Bishop would seem to be an anachronism, as unlikely a character as TV's kindly Marcus Welby. In fact, he is only one of a growing new breed of doctors: the family practitioner. The first trained and accredited F.P.s, as they are called, appeared in 1970. Now there are more than 11,000 (out of the 340,000 active U.S. doctors). Like that vanishing species, the old-fashioned G.P.. family practitioners will do everything from delivering babies and setting bones to patching up family quarrels. In emergencies, they will even make house calls, which most doctors justifiably avoid on grounds that they are inefficient and often ineffectual.

But unlike their predecessors --who sometimes administered more kindness than medical competence--F.P.s usually have the skills to match their versatility. Before they are certified by the American Board of Family Practice, the fastest growing U.S. specialty, F.P.s must pass tough exams. Beginning next year, all new family practitioners will also have to complete three-year residencies. Now available at more than 300 hospitals, these residencies expose the fledgling F.P.s to a wide range of training--from basics of surgery and cardiology to obstetrics. Every six years they will be re-examined to make sure they have kept up with medical progress. In the first such recertification test last fall, TIME has learned, 4% of the doctors flunked and will have to be tested again before they can be recertified. Finally, in the six-year intervals between boards, they must clock at least 300 hours of medical education.

Lukewarm Welcome. The F.Ps have not been received with open arms by everyone. Some specialists say they lack the know-how to handle serious problems. Insists Dr. David Van Gelder, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics: "Where a pediatrician is available, children are better off with a pediatrician." Still, family practitioners maintain that they can diagnose and treat 95% of all ailments they encounter --usually at lower cost. Many medical educators agree. Says Dr. Richard H Moy, dean of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, which trains F.P.s: "If you are sneezing and go to an allergist, he may give you a couple hundred dollars' worth of allergy shots."

More important, family practitioners are winning the loyalty of their clientele. Says one of Bishop's patients: "If we need him, we can call him at night and he'll help us." Adds an expectant mother: "I'd rather go to Dr. Bishop than an obstetrician. He can take care of me, my husband and our baby. We have gotten to know him as a friend."

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