Occupational medicine: new interface for family medicine?

Family physicians are naturally concerned with the work effects or causes of their patients' health problems. As occupational risk factors have become better understood, however, a new specialty of occupational medicine has been recognized by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1984, two years after the Canadian Board of Occupational Medicine started its own certification. Occupational physicians are available to act as an extension of the family doctor's care and can provide trustworthy medical resources in the workplace. The family physician should be aware of some of the games poorly trained or ill-informed personnel managers may play in the workplace if they have no medical consultant to rely on. New human rights legislation has given more opportunities to rehabilitate workers back to their jobs, and occupational physicians and family physicians can achieve a great deal in co-operation as a result.