The development and prospect of chinese general practice since the founding of new China 70 years ago

As a secondary clinical discipline, General Practice was born in the late 1960s and originated from modern general medicine internationally. Since the late 1980s, with the rapid development of the social economy of China, the continuous improvement of people's living standards and the increasing demands on health of urban and rural residents, General Practice has been established formally and has developed considerably in mainland China as the result of the strong promotion of the Chinese government, the active efforts from experts in General Practice and other disciplines, and the broad support from the whole society. In this article, we introduce the development history of General Practice in mainland China, with emphasis on the achievements of the development of General Practice in the past 30 years. Finally, we elaborate the challenges General Practice faces and put forward six suggestions for the future development of General Practice in the light of the people's needs for health and the national strategic requirements of health China, aiming to discuss with our readers how to further strengthen the discipline construction of General Practice, to perfect the community-level medical and health service system, to improve the service level of general practitioners, and to embark on a new journey comprehensively for the development of General Practice.