Family Medicine at the University: Experience of the Sobramfa, Medical Education & Humanism

Abstract

If students do not see the model of the Family Physicians teaching at the university, to promote the specialization will be more difficult. It is time to consider other fields of medical education, in which Family Physicians can collaborate and, while they teach specific and varied contents, distilling values of Family Medicine and thus become a model for students. Family Medicine Values that attract students to the specialization are also necessary to build competent physicians. Therefore, Family Physicians who are presented as collaborators in the students’ formation will help to form good doctors “stem-cells”. The practice of medicine centered on the individual, the humanistic perspective of medical action, continuing and wide care are, in fact, values of excellence in daily practice of medicine. This result is understandable for students, because those values can motivate the decision of becoming physicians. Students learn not only from specific, but also from the professors. They will discover in these professors who are in fact, Family Physicians, teachers committed and interested on their formation and they will notice how they improve their learning. These results will increase the prestige of Family Physicians as professors in the academic community. The collaboration strategies of the Brazilian Society of Family Medicine (Sobramfa) that initiated five years ago have resulted in placing nine professors as regular teachers in six Faculties of Medicine of Sao Paulo, Brazil, acting in different teaching scenarios and disseminating the values of Family Medicine among students.