From Family Doctor to Student Preceptor in the Brazilian Unified Health System: Experience Report

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: This article reports the experience of a physician, specialist in Family and Community Medicine, who works in a Basic Health Unit in the southern region of the city of São Paulo, in the Primary Health Care of the Unified Health System, when he became a Preceptor of Medical students at Universidade São Caetano do Sul. Method: The students learned about the typical structure of a Basic Health Unit. They learned how to acquire the medical history during anamnesis, under supervision, and the physical examination, as they acquired the necessary skills. They also learned how to request complementary examinations. With this training, they learned how to apply the clinical method during practice. The students also learned the competence to apply the clinical method in uncontrolled environments through the home visit, which also made it possible to know the reality of the patient in loco. The follow-up of families and the index cases for a few years gave the students the opportunity to experience the different care cycles of the Family Health Strategy, including the question of death, which started in the socio-family context. They also participated and carried out assistance and knowledge transmission groups for the community, in which students were able to train communication and adaptation at the population level. They met and participated in the team meetings, which allowed showing the weekly planning of activities, the interdisciplinary discussion of more complex cases and the created strategies. Results: The promising results of the Active Methodologies based on student autonomy, in relation to the learning process, are applied to the teaching of Medicine in clinical practice environments, since the contact with reality improves learning, challenges the students to research and reflect with autonomy to think about what they must do with the established learning goals and teaches them to use previous experiences to interrelate new knowledge with previous information through Evidence-Based Medicine and reflect on medical practice. Conclusion: Comments are also made on the National Curricular Guidelines, which request the inclusion of the medical student within the scope of the Unified Health System, aimed mainly at Primary Health Care learning.