Symposium discusses the role of the family and community doctor

A meeting marked by the exchange of training experiences and professional experiences. So was the I Symposium on Family and Community Health, which happened on the day December 5, on campus Brotas da Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública, the result of a partnership between the institution and the Residency Program in Family and Community Medicine. The date chosen is also the same on which the Family Doctor's Day is commemorated.

Coordinated by Dr. Rita Carvalho, Professor of Medicine and Family Physician, the symposium had the active participation of academics, residents and family physicians, who together discussed challenges and new paths for the performance of this medical specialist.

The program began with a round of conversation with the participation of Dr. Rita, the coordinator of the Residency Program in Family and Community Medicine at the School of Public Health, Dr. Miriam Marambaia, and family doctors, Dr. Whashington Luiz Abreu Jesus and Dr. Andréa Beatriz Silva dos Santos, all professors at Bahiana, in addition to doctors and professors Dr. Kilce Gonçalves and Dr. Lílian Carvalho.

The Family and Community Doctor

Dr. Rita Carvalho explains that family medicine takes an integral look at the individual. "She wants to take care of the individual in all life cycles. This doctor is not a pediatrician, a geriatrician, a hebiatrician or a general practitioner. He is a family and community doctor who takes care of the person from the prenatal period, he accompanies the childcare for this newborn, then monitors the development and growth of this child, this adolescent, this adult." She explains that the difference from the old concept of family doctor was that this was called in the disease and today, not. "He is called on in prevention. He is that doctor who is concerned with his vaccines, with risk situations such as alcoholism. For example: what does the doctor have to do with racism? Everything, because it is one of the inequities to which the individual is subjected."

She also emphasizes the importance of training a multidisciplinary care team. "Everything is interrelated with the individual's health. You cannot say that an adolescent who lives in the periphery studied with the same ease as a young person who studied 30 minutes from college. This person has much more difficulty. And these difficulties require a different care, neither better nor worse, just different! That's why the family health team is territorialized. A family doctor must attend to a certain group of people.”

For Juliana Lopes, a physician who has recently graduated from Bahiana, the demands made to the family doctor lead her to reflect on the role of this professional: “After some experiences in inner cities, I started to ask myself: 'What is the role of this doctor? This doctor that I am can handle all this? Will being an expert family doctor be enough?' ” She says that she intends to do the Family and Community Health residency at Bahiana, which was created two years ago: “I want the residence to help me organize my ideas, but it's not going to be the 'magic wand' that will solve everything either. This 'being a doctor' does not exist. We have to know how to communicate and work as a team, because we are not the center, we are there to play a role and the need is great, we need help all the time”.

The program also featured an activity by Lian Gong, led by Dr. Kilce Gonçalves, and a lecture by the doctor, philosopher, psychologist and professor at Bahiana, Dr. André Peixinho. As an outcome, participants were able to contemplate an exhibition of posters with health experiences in communities.