The Role Of The General Practitioner And Of The Periodic Health-Check

Understanding of the role of the General Practitioner and of primary health care

Primary health care aims at bringing services of healthcare and wellbeing closer to the community. It encompasses evidence-based healthcare practices and techniques geared at meeting everyone’s health needs during their whole life.

The General Practitioners (or GP) is the first-line providing of primary health care to all members of the community. The General Practitioner will examine and diagnose with a holistic view based on medical knowledge of all functions of your body. General Practitioners are trained to diagnose, make appropriate recommendations or treatment, and ensure lifelong follow-up and monitoring of patients.

Unlike doctors in specialized departments, the General Practitioner will examine patients with the most comprehensive approach, with consideration of all of the patient's aspects in mind, from the physical to the psycho-social living conditions of patients. By consulting with a General Practitioner, patients can be diagnosed and consulted with for a variety of acute and chronic health problems such as:

• Acute medical condition (fever, cough, dizziness, nervousness, fatigue, etc.)
• Monitor physical health status (high blood pressure, diabetes, dyslipidemia, respiratory and digestive diseases, etc.)
• Extension or renewal of prescriptions for chronic diseases (Hypertension medications, sugar-suppressing treatments, etc.)
• Clarify drug issues, preventive advice, vaccination....

When experiencing general health problems, the patient should consider going to the GP first, who will refer the patient to a specialist if and when needed. The specialist has the role of a second-line expert for patients with more complicated conditions, which do not improve after first-line treatment.

The role of GPs in developed countries

In the US and in European countries such as France, the General Practitioner or family doctor plays the role of a focal point or the center of the overall medical system for patients. Each resident will see a General Practitioner or family doctor of their choice. Whenever they have a health problem, resident will not go straight to the hospital but go to the clinic to see their family doctor or General Practitioner first. The GP will check the patient's symptoms and treat within the scope of expertise. If the condition is complicated or severe, the General Practitioner will refer the patient to a hospital or to a specialist.

In developed countries, to see a specialist doctor, people have to make an appointment a long time in advance and at a high cost. Therefore, a General Practitioner or family doctor is the best first choice, monitoring people's health throughout life as if they were a family member.

Family doctors are less known in Vietnam

In Vietnam, people are not yet familiar with the role of General Practitioner or family doctor. Patients have the habit of seeking treatment with a specialist according to symptoms they experience, such as if they have a cough, they will go to see an otolaryngologist or a respiratory doctor; if they have stomach pain, they will go to see a gastroenterologist, etc.  This habit leads to patients possibly wasting unnecessary time and costs. The specialist will have a partial view of the problem while, the General Practitioner can effectively diagnose and treat most common ailments and will have a more comprehensive view of the patient's complaint.

Facing that situation, the Ministry of Health has been promoting the development of general examination as well as family medicine and primary health care. In recent years, the Ministry has actively implemented and replicated the model of a community health center based on family medicine principles in order to improve medical service delivery capacity and quality. Medical and high-tech technologies are continuously updated and transferred from the central to local levels to better take care of people's health.

When having health problems, who should you see first?

When experiencing abnormal health signs, patients should consider seeing a General Practitioner or family doctor for general advice and treatment first.

In addition, people should get periodic health checks so that the General Practitioner can make a preliminary diagnosis so he can detect any condition or disease early on and give appropriate recommendations or treatment, suitable health care and vaccination.

As the most modern international hospital in the North of Vietnam, the General Medicine Department of Hanoi French Hospital (HFH) boasts state-of-the-art equipment and a medical team of domestic and international General Practitioners with thorough knowledge of medical examination and treatment. Customers will be taken good care of right from the moment they call to book an appointment for health check service at HFH. The hospital's consulting team will advise customers to see the most appropriate doctor for their condition, thus saving time and money.

At Hanoi French Hospital, we provide general health check services, led by General Practitioners with all specialties, the same as in Western countries, with a team of experienced and highly qualified General Practitioners such as: Doctor Vu Hoang Thu, Doctor Mathieu Nalpas...

At Hanoi French Hospital (HFH), patients are monitored and treated as if they were our family members. Many patients have trusted our First-class health care services over the years.  One of them is Mr. H. who has been monitored and treated at the hospital since 2005 for chronic and serious disease. During that time, Mr. H suffered from many diseases arising from the underlying condition of that chronic disease, such as tuberculosis, diabetes, blood pressure, stroke, sepsis... and was closely monitored by HFH’s General Practitioner.  Given this privileged doctor-patient relationship, direct communication was possible with his General Practitioner when Mr. H thought it necessary.  Whenever Mr. H. had a health emergency, he could consult with his GP doctor, sometimes directly by phone or also via the hospital tele-consultation. This way, the patient did not need to go to the hospital all that often. For a long time, Mr. H’s family has considered the doctor as their relative and trusted counselor for any examination and treatment as well as to receive long-term follow-up by that same doctor.

In order to provide customers with outstanding medical examination and treatment services, Hanoi French Hospital (HFH) has been gradually developing the quality and range of its health check services. To match the health check choices more closely to customers’s requirements, on November 23th 2022, Hanoi French Hospital introduces 3 new advanced general health check packages referred to as Topaz, Sapphire, Ruby with specialized services such as: cranial magnetic resonance (MRI), gastroscopy and colonoscopy, PIVKA II test, low-dose lung tomography (CT)… More specifically, customers who register for these new health check packages at HFH from November 23 to November 30, 2022 will receive a 10% discount (according to applicable terms).

The list of specific services included in each health examination package of Hanoi French Hospital has been set by experienced General Practitioners to best suit the needs of each customer profile, making it simpler for each to choose the right package. Customers registering for health check package and making an appointment in advance will receive a competitive fee compared to using each service individually as well as save in waiting time.

For more information about health check packages and discounts, please contact Hotline 024.35771100 or inbox Fanpage "Hanoi French Hospital", or Zalo OA.

Health tips from the highly qualified General Practitioners at Hanoi French Hospital:

• Doctor Vu Hoang Thu:

When experiencing light to moderate health problems, patients should visit a General Practitioner first for a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. This also helps patients save costs and shorten waiting times.

Antibiotic resistance is a prominent problem in the world and especially in Vietnam because of the indiscriminate use of antibiotics beyond what is indicated. If the use of antibiotics is not controlled, in just a few decades, we will no longer have any antibiotics that are sensitive to bacteria and our children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences of that. Hanoi French Hospital only prescribes antibiotics to patients when there is evidence of a bacterial infection. The considerate prescription of antibiotics is one of the reasons many people choose to visit Hanoi French Hospital.

To protect their health, people should limit salt, sugar and fat in their daily meals, and not use alcohol and tobacco.

• Dr. Mathieu Nalpas

Everyone should have their general health regularly checked, once a year sounds reasonable. Regular health check is a great opportunity to address health issues and to practice preventive medicine. Some cancers can be diagnosed early enough to be fully managed and treated. The risk of stroke and heart attack is significantly decreasing when cardio-vascular risk factors are detected and controlled in time. An early visit to the General Practitioner will allow him to personalize the diagnosis and to get a health check that fits perfectly with the patient needs. General Practitioners are trained to support and advice their patients so they can live a long and healthy life