This website offers information about Family Medicine clinical sites, physicians, clinical research, and links to patient resources within UMHS. To find the care you need see our list of Family Medicine health centers.

For a listing of Family Medicine physicians see the UMHS Physician Directory then search under "Specialty/Department" within "Family Medicine. For UMHS referral information see UMHS information for Health Professionals.

NEWS

October 20, 2009: New Clinical Project in Qatar — A new international research investigation has begun under the leadership of Michael D. Fetters, M.D., M.P.H., M.A., associate professor, and Maya Hammoud, M.D., associate professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Fetters states the grant grew out of a need for “culturally and linguistically specific tools … to generate data to understand health care quality in Qatar and make international comparisons.” This $1 million dollar, three-year project was funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, the national research organization in Qatar that is equivalent to the NIH in the US. The multimember US team is partnering with colleagues from the Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar and Hamad Medical Corporation to develop the multilingual instrument.

This work is in keeping with the efforts of several U-M family medicine faculty who are concerned about the need for improved health care quality internationally as well as domestically, and as a result have worked abroad in Japan, Ecuador, Jamaica and Ghana, as featured in the last three department newsletters.

Through collaboration with other U-M investigators with interests in Arab and Muslim health issues, the assembled project team draws on a growing expertise at the U-M Health System. The research team will develop a health care quality assessment tool based in part on the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Survey that was developed with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The resulting instrument will be culturally and linguistically adapted for Qatar using four languages commonly spoken in Qatar, namely, Arabic, English, Hindi, and Urdu. The product of this research will be a multilingual, standardized health care quality assessment tool that can be used to improve health care quality in Qatar and make international quality comparisons.

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August 3, 2009: Health care disparity for deaf patients — A special feature relates the story behind the success of Dr. Philip Zazove, and focuses on his article on difficulty of communication deaf persons have with their physicians. “Deaf persons have been found to be the non-English speaking minority at greatest risk for miscommunication with their physicians,” according to Philip Zazove, M.D., professor, whose story of his success in becoming a physician and other achievements, in spite of his being deaf, is shared in a special article appearing in the Medicine at Michigan, Summer 2009 publication.  In addition, he states, “If we can help this group, there’s potential for helping other non-English speaking minorities. People who have a profound hearing loss in general have a lower understanding of how to cope.” View story at: http://www.medicineatmichigan.org/magazine/2009/summer/limelight/

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August 3, 2009: Catastrophic Injury in young female athletes — “Cheerleading has become the leading cause of catastrophic injury in young female athletes,” says Amy M. Bohn, M.D., assistant professor, according to a UMHS press release. Better training for coaching staff recommended.  Dr. Bohn is also cited in the U-M University Record as of August 4th, regarding the rise in injuries due to the growing competitive nature of the sport.

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