On August 21, 2019, the Ministry of Health issued Circular 21/2019/TT-BYT guiding piloting family medicine activities. This Circular takes effect form October, 15, 2019.
Accordingly, the family doctor practitioner must meet the following conditions:
• For general practitioners, specialists in clinical systems
– Having been granted a medical examination and treatment practice certificate;
– Meet one of the following cases:
+ Having one of the degrees of resident doctor, specialist I, specialist II, master and doctorate in family medicine major;
+ Having a certificate of training and retraining in family medicine for at least 3 months;
+ Having a certificate of attendance at each batch of study, with the content stated in the certificate or credit or training program on family medicine with a total duration of at least 3 months.
• For preventive medicine doctors:
– Having been granted a medical examination and treatment practice certificate;
– Having a certificate of training and retraining in family medicine for at least 3 months.
When fully satisfying the above conditions, the general practitioner and the clinical specialist shall be entitled to medical examination and treatment for family medicine; Preventive medicine doctors are allowed to participate in medical examination and treatment of family medicine at commune, ward and township health stations (line 4).
• For those who have been granted medical examination and treatment practice certificates and have conducted family medicine examination and treatment activities before October 15, 2019 (the effective date of this Circular), they may continue to operate. and be responsible for re-training and continuing training to update family medicine knowledge for at least 03 months.
In summary, the specific and strict regulation of professional qualifications, family medicine training certificates for people performing family medicine examination and treatment activities contributes to improving the quality, effectiveness of care, examination and treatment.