Home visits to children with chronic diseases: their influence in medical students’ education

DOI: 10.15343/0104-7809.20103327335

Abstract

This work aims to describe a project for teaching basic values of Family Medicine, in a context of home visits to children with chronic
diseases. Medical students accompanied a family doctor of SOBRAMFA (Brazilian Society of Family Medicine) in home visits to children with chronic
diseases and reported their points of view through a descriptive narrative. The reports were evaluated using a qualitative approach. The study showed
that medical students participating in this project managed to build a broader perspective on the complexity of caring for children with chronic
diseases. Emotional aspects, family dynamics, the home environment, the pain and the anguish that families suffer to surmount obstacles in order
to obtain specific medicines, together with financial problems, are shown to be correlated in each home visit. Students realize that they need to
deal with all these questions to offer a more efficient and compassionate presence as doctors. They also understand that home visits have a high
clinical efficiency because patients remain in their homes and are less hospitalized. A proposal for teaching medical students in visits to children with
chronic diseases together with family doctors is a useful teaching setting because it reveals unsuspected and essential aspects to medical students
and introduces them to the central values of Family Medicine.