training

Year of family medicine established: 1976 (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007)

Type of Training: Residency Program (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007)

Length of Training: Training consists of 6 years of Medical School (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007) followed by 3 years of a Residency Program (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007).

Number of institutions that offer family medicine: In the city of Cochabamba, there are 2 residency programs: one in the Services of the CNSS and the other in the services of the Viedma Hospital of the Ministry of Health. In the city of Cochabamba, they also have the Faculty of Medicine of the University Mayor of “San Simon”. In the city of La Paz, there are 2 residency programs one in the Services of the CNSS and another in the Services of the Ministry of Health. In the cities of Santa Cruz, Oruro and Sucre, there is 1 residency program; in the Services of the CNSS, though in Sucre there is a residency program in the Services of the Ministry of Health (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007).

Number of family medicine residents graduating each year: 62 family doctors graduated from 1987 to 2005 from the family medicine residency in Cochabamba. 16 family doctors graduated from 1995-2005 from the family medicine residency in Viedma Hospital (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007).

practice

Number of family doctors: On average, the ratio of family physicians to patients is 473 per 100,000 people (World Bank, 2018)

Physician to population ratio: 4,000 trained family physicians per 25,000 to 100,000 people (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007).

DALY: 25,544 per 100,000 individuals (Due to all Causes).

Life Expectancy:

• Females 2017: 72.1 years

• Males 2017: 67.0 years

Mortality rate 2017:

• 2017 Males: 212 per 1,000 male adults.

• 2017 Females: 146 per 1,000 female adults.

Infant Immunization-HepB3: % of 1-year-old children received: 83%

College of Family Physicians (Y or N):

• NO

training

In Bolivia, medical training involves 6 years of medical school (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007) and 3 years of a residency program originally, however, in 1984, the program was reduced to 2 years. The first year is in the Hospital Obrero and the other in the polyconsultations of the institution that function as a technical-administrative and psychosocial academic area) (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007). Bolivia has 400 trained family medicine specialists, each doctor working in the public health system, managing a team which cares for a population between 2500 to 10000. Bolivia has residency programs based in several schools, Ministry of Health, social services and hospitals (Ruiz Guzman, 2007).

practice

Bolivia also has pediatricians, nursing assistants, obstetrics and gynecologists. Individuals are trained as pediatricians before being trained as family physicians (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007). The typical work schedule for a family physician in Bolivia is 6 hours dedicated to external consultation; in other words, house visits (Ruiz Guzmán, 2007). There is no Gatekeeping in Bolivia (Bilbao C., et al., 2011). In Bolivia, the principles that govern Family Medicine constitute three essentials, which include integrality (approach of the person as an integral whole), continuity (each family doctor or each health team has the responsibility of a certain number of families; ideally 400-500) and attention to managerial aspects, which means the family doctor is a coordinator and administrator of the resources that are available (Bilbao C., et al., 2011).