Primary health care perspective of clinical management: The legacy of Barbara Starfield

Xavier Bayona

Six years ago, the magnificent Barbara Starfield left us (December 18 1932 - June 10, 2011). She was a paediatrician and a major promoter of primary health care at the international level. Virtually her entire academic and professional life was tied to Johns Hopkins University. Since 1994 she directed the Department of Health Policy and Management of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore (United States). From 1996, she was the co-director of The Johns Hopkins Primary Care Policy Centre (PCPC).

Those who had the opportunity to enjoy any of her conferences can say that she never left us feeling indifferent and she always allowed us to reflect on what we were doing and encouraged us to bring sanity to our workplaces as part of the health system. She was a great advocate for improving health systems by strengthening primary care and making sense of what is happening in the world by focusing health care on people and their needs. I still remember how in the conference room of the Catalan Oncology Institute (ICO), a few years ago, she told the audience that we were wasting time and resources with a lot of the screening we did and that we had to improve our orientation.