Family Medicine Residency Training: Where, How Much, How and When?

In this article, it will be discussed of the setting and the importance of the family medicine residency training in field related workshop framework that was made in the WONCA Europe Conference 2015. Family medicine residency training consists of three basic pillars: Rotations in hospital and other health care facilities, educational activities in family medicine departments and training in primary care settings. Between 1985 and 2011, formal residency training was consisted only of hospital rotations. With the rapid growth of family medicine departments in universities and clinics in research and training hospitals since 1995, educational activities of departments have increasingly been an important part of residency training. In 2011, with the acceptance of new core curriculum by TUK (Specialty Board in Medicine) obligatory rotations were decreased to 18 months. After a long term effort, necessary regulatory changes have been made to enable residency training in primary care. Although valuable contributions have been made by Turkish Association of Family Physicians (TAHUD), Turkish Board of Family Medicine (TAHYK) and Academy of Family Medicine residency training in primary care settings is still needed to be discussed and clarified.