Obstetrics and Gynecology

Abstract

The female patient, from fetus to matriarch, whether single, married, a mother of children, a career person, or all of these, needs a family physician. The expanding role of the female in society places increasing demands on the health care team to not only provide her with normal development, both anatomic and physiologic, but to provide guidance to her sexuality, childbearing, hazards to her health, normal menopausal phenomena, and aging. The family physician either by practice or in his role in a given community must additionally identify and manage the variance from the normals whether they are of functional or organic etiology. The family practice specialist has a unique opportunity to provide continuity and comprehensive surveillance of the gynecologic development and intervening gynecologic and obstetric events, normal or abnormal, of his female patients.