ABSTRACT
The previous chapter defined the role of a family doctor as ‘the set of values, norms and beliefs that she tries to adhere to – the principles that motivate her professional behaviour and actions’. As such, the role constitutes a set of drivers, some of which prompt behaviour that is appropriate to family doctors as a group, and the rest of which prompt the behaviour which enables each family doctor to do her job in her own personal way. The role that a family doctor chooses is thus of fundamental importance, but it is how the role is portrayed which actually does the work. As far as her patients are concerned, what is important is not what a family doctor intends to do, but what she does do.
