A Professional Myth: Personal Continuity of Care and New Zealand General Practice in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

In this article, we question the narrative of a 'diminishing class' of family physicians providing continuity of care. A case-study of general practitioners in Wellington, New Zealand, suggests that there has been less change than many believe. We seek to establish that treatment by traditional family doctors constituted a minority experience. Alternative accounts tend to focus on continuous practices but these probably represent just over a third of the total. Despite this fact, there is a widely held contemporary perception of debased primary care provision. Indeed, general practitioners themselves have contributed to the development of the myth of a twentieth-century demise of continuity of care, and particularly so during the 1960s and 1970s when many were seeking to establish a role as primary providers. Ironically, the myth of the demise of the traditional family doctor has made general practitioners, and many patients, even more discontented with contemporary services than should perhaps be the case.