``The aim is to expose the FFPAI members to the fast-changing medical patterns of diagnosis, medicines and treatment of contemporary times all over,'' said Kapadia, talking to Express Newsline.

According to Kapadia, a one-year diploma course for general practioners would be started through the FFPAI, even as dialogues with one of the prominent hospitals of Surat were in the final stages so as give the students hands-on training at the hospital.

The course syllabus and the faculty members had already been finalised, he said, adding that it was FFPAI headquarter at Practitioner which had started the country's first such academy on the lines of ones in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.

``We have to make such arrangements, besides holding a number of programmes, lest we the general practioners are nudged out of the present cut-throat competition by specialists and super-specialists in different faculties of medicines and surgery,'' he specified, admitting that the general practioners were in the midst of an identity crisis.

Almost all the 5,000 members belonging to the national body of general practitioners (or family physicians) forum -- which has more than 28 chapters in the country -- were suffering from ``severe identity crisis'', said Kapadia, adding that since most of the doctors today aspired to be specialists and super-specialists, the number of bachelors of medicines and surgery (MBBS) was shrinking at an abnormal rate.

``Today people like to have family gynaecologists, cardiologists, paediatricians, unlike five or 10 years ago when one opted for a family physician who looked after all the health-related problems of each and every member of the family,'' Kapadia said. But the common man still continued to consult a general practioner and sparingly went to the ``expensive'' specialists, he added.

There were occasions when general practitioners, specially of yesteryears, failed to properly diagnose an ailment or even erred in guiding patients to the right expert, he admitted. ``And this is why general practitioners now needed to come of age,'' he pointed out. The 15-year-old Federation has now decided to increase its membership, hold more scientific sessions, publish its first bi-annual magazine from next month, undertake research projects on different diseases and medicines, spread information among its members about different treatment-dispensing patterns of the world and country and discourage quackery.

``Our idea is to update the expertise of family physicians who have to cater to the medical needs of a large chunk of people and especially so when the technological advancement in diagnosis and treatment patterns is being made on almost daily basis in the world'', he added.

Earlier in the day, besides Kapadia and former president Jashubhai Shah, Indravadan Shah and Eqbal Pothiwala, Tony Nicholas and Yatish Lapshiwala from Surat and Hemant Modi and Kirti Parikh of Vadodara delivered technical lectures on malaria. Kapadia was also honoured by the State members on his being elected to head the national body of FFPAI.

Meanwhile, another educative session on basics of interpretations of state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment such as CT Scan and Immuno-Florescent Technique would be held next month at Vadodara.