These doctors possess a set of skills and attitudes, as well as a knowledge base that allows them to provide broadly based care to their communities. These are outlined below under the subheadings of the four principles of family medicine. Rural family physicians, like all effective family physicians, incorporate the four principles of family medicine into their practice of medicine. These form part of the background upon which the curriculum for training rural practitioners must rest. The family physician is a skilled clinician.
Family medicine is a community-based discipline.
The family physician is a resource to a defined practice population. The patient-physician relationship is central to the role of the family physician. Rural physicians must be involved in, and skilled at, both office based primary care, and also, to varying degrees, hospital based medical care in order to provide comprehensive and safe service to their patients locally. In both office based service, and the hospital based services of emergency medicine, obstetrics and minor surgery, and orthopaedics, rural physicians must be competent in a core set of skills which allows them to deal with more complex medical problems than they would do if specialists were immediately and easily accessible. In addition to these core skills, some rural physicians acquire advanced skill sets which may include GP anaesthesia, operative obstetrics and GP surgery.