Southeast Asia

In this region there is repetition in the trend observed in the South Asian region, where a few countries in close proximity have well-established family medicine programs such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. However, there are a few countries in the Southeast Asian region that have either recently established training programs or no family medicine program despite the close proximity to countries with well established family medicine systems.

Singapore has taken a very different approach to the training and practice of family physicians by enforcing the renewal of license to continue practice and ensuring family medicine trainees get to interact with specialists during the training together helps raise the effectiveness of the family practice. A reason for this success could be due to the small size of the country making it relatively easier to implement changes.

Thailand despite having a well established family medicine system is still not well recognized as a specialty by the people in the country. An interesting study was conducted by the country to understand the effect of family medicine training on satisfaction of patients, this study showed that healthcare professionals are evaluating the existing practices in the country in an effort to improve the healthcare system.

There is a lot of variability in the role of family physicians in this region. This could have evolved as a way for the physicians to adapt to the changes in the population in terms of need for services. In Thailand, family physicians could practice alternative medicine. In Indonesia, the number of hours a physician works determines the role of the physician. In Singapore, physicians trained in older programs have moved to leadership roles while physicians trained recently occupy the workforce.