title: Primary and preventive care in a university obstetrics and gynecology group practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Our purpose was to determine whether primary and preventive care is practiced by a university obstetrician-gynecologist group practice.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective chart review spanning 2 years of four academic physicians' private practices was performed. A total of 335 patients were reviewed with 739 patient encounters and 1032 patient problems identified. The definition of a primary care physician according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists was used to standardize data collection and evaluation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Obstetric complaints accounted for 27.7% of all visits, whereas 65.4% were for gynecologic problems. Almost 7% of all complaints were neither obstetric nor gynecologic, and of those 74.6% were primary care problems completely managed by the obstetrician-gynecologist. Only 19.7% of these were referred for management. More than 89% of all encounters (659/739) involved some element of primary care.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study provides evidence that the majority of health care provided by the obstetrician-gynecologist is primary care.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201, USA.
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Hendrix
authors.forename: S D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Piereson
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: McNeeley
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006176:Gynecology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008824:Michigan; D008875:Middle Aged; D009774:Obstetrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010821:Physicians, Family; D011315:Preventive Medicine; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014495:Universities