Romana

An International Symposium on Family Medicine was held on October 6 and 7 in São Paulo at the University Extension Center, under the sponsorship of the Brazilian Society for Family Medicine.

The Symposium included Brazil’s Minister of Health, Dr. José Serra, and Dr. Joshua Freeman, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Texas, as well as other prestigious doctors from various countries. Dr. Pablo Gonzalez Blasco, professor of Family Medicine and a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, was coordinator of the event. The Symposium was attended by a large number of young doctors and medical students.

The Symposium dealt with the organization of family medicine in Brazil and the role of the university in the training of doctors in this specialty. It also considered the experience of other countries in this area, as a way of humanizing medicine and giving more importance to the patient as a person and his or her family situation. “Knowing the person who is sick,” one of the conclusions states, “is just as or more important than knowing the sickness afflicting the person.”