Towards a more human medicine

In the first week of October Sao Paulo hosted an International Symposium on Family Medicine, in the Center for University Extension. Posted 12/03/00.

In the first week of October Sao Paulo hosted an International Symposium on Family Medicine, in the Center for University Extension.

Sponsored by the Brazilian Association for Family Medicine, the gathering was addressed by Dr. Jose Serra, Brazil's Health Minister, Dr. Joshua Freeman, director of the department of family medicine at the University of Texas, and other noted physicians from various countries. Coordinating the event was Dr. Pablo González Blasco, professor of family medicine and representative of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. In attendance were a number of young physicians and medical students.

The symposium dealt with how family medicine plays itself out in the Brazilian context and how its universities can better prepare such specialists. Emphasis was also given to international experiences in making the practice of medicine more human by focusing on the patient's personal and familial settings. “To get acquainted with the person who is ill,” reads one of the symposium's conclusions, “is as crucial, if not more so, than to know what ails him or her.”