In commentaries, research papers, and policy reports published across Canada, there exists considerable variation in the ways the discipline of family medicine is perceived. Some scholars describe family physicians as the consummate medical experts: physicians able to respond to patient needs across the age, sex, and community spectrums. In other instances, family medicine is understood as the provision of care that is patient centred and compassionate, foregrounding the role of the family physician in providing holistic care and advocacy for the entire person. In contrast to their subspecialist counterparts, family physicians are trained to address the needs of Canadians by maintaining the breadth of knowledge and skills required to provide comprehensive, continuous care in urban and rural communities.1 Over the years, practitioners, policy makers, and scholars have shaped these constructions of the discipline into various models for framing, explaining, and justifying clinical practice in family medicine.2 The recent College of Family Physicians of Canada publication of the Family Physician Professional Profile brings together all of these ideas in describing that “it is through relational continuity and a commitment to a broad scope of practice that the complexity of care is meaningfully addressed.”3
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