Competence and humanism – a critical reflection

DOI: 10.15343/0104-7809.20103368374

Abstract

What routes must Family Medicine go through for excelling and contribute efficiently to the improvement of individuals
and communities health? The answer generally mentions health policies. In spite of this, this paper focuses the doctor as a person. How
must we train a doctor who is both a humanist and a professional who excels? Is it possible to educate people to be competent and
humanist doctors? We analyze some recent publications that can be thought as a possible teaching guide for reaching these goals. The
outlined itineraries point to apprenticeship of empathy, which translates in professional competence; the systematic construction of
the perspective of a generalist that excels, something which implies ways of being, knowing, realizing, deciding and acting and, finally,
indicate how a professional with these attributes is able to transform the system so as to make it efficient and competent. The question
is: if the itinerary is clear, what is so difficult to put in practice the education of a humanist and competent doctor? The answer comes
in the form of a philosophical and vital thought: only doctors are able to integrate knowledge coming from several sources, since only
when they incorporates this way of being in their lives and makes it their own life are doctors able to fully practice their medical vocation
and guide their lives by means of a constantly replete unity of competence and humanism.