ABSTRACT
Names may reveal or conceal, but will always illustrate, just as shadows or highlights create a picture. Primary medical care has collected a string of descriptions which express something of its many-sided character. In Russia there are ‘polyclinics’, in the United States we find ‘family medicine’, and in Britain it is ‘general practice’. What does each phrase say about its work? We shall return briefly to the American model but British general practice is clear in its statement. It describes work which is essentially pragmatic and responsive-it is there to do things for people-and has a broad, all-embracing approach. It makes an apparently impossible promise: to cater for everything which anyone might decide is appropriately brought to it for attention. It is a world reflected, a microcosm saying (with popular journalism) ‘all human life is here’ or (if you prefer the more elevated style of the classics) ‘nihil humanum a me alienum puto’. It is the first port of call for people who think they are ill, whatever that is, and cannot cope with the illness by their own resources, however small or large these might be.
