The clinical method in the practice of family medicine

This article presents some considerations on the application of the clinical method in primary health care and justifies its importance and particularities. The procedure developed by the general practitioner in order to collect the data, mainly on the basis of the interview to the patient and the physical examination along with his diagnostic reasoning is presented. The role of clinical, epidemiological and social approach is highlighted. The contributions of this method, the analysis of the health situation and the segmentation method in the clinical practice of family medicine have been analyzed. The author points out some variations and adaptations to the so called patient-centered clinical method. We insist on the way the general physician understands problems and addresses them using the clinical method. This may be of interest for other specialists who treat the same disorders and the same patients approached from other health areas