Del lado de allá y del lado de acá: ¿qué pueden aprender mutuamente los países emergentes latinoamericanos y España para mejorar sus perfiles del médico de familia?

Abstract

Objective: A qualitative study was carried out with the aim to find strategic factors involving learning opportunities that northern developed countries could use from emerging countries in the South and vice versa. Design, setting and participants: A non-random intentional sampling, followed by a snowball sampling until data saturation were carried out by a group of primary health care family physicians in Toledo and Tenerife in Spain and Paraguay, Mexico and Peru. Field diaries of a normal day and its health and social care context were kept and analyzed, and a SWOT study (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) was performed. Main measures and results: Twenty-four diaries of a normal day were obtained (9 physicians in Spain, 7 in Mexico, 4 in Paraguay and 4 in Peru). Some strengths were found in the South in the coexistence of ambulatory care and hospital work, in the wide range of care tasks, in the greater weight of health promotion and educational activities targeted to the population, in the presence of community field activities, in the integration of traditional medicine, in the better patient-doctor relationship and a more positive perception of the workload. And the strengths in northern countries were: more prevention, health promotion and educational actions integrated in visits to the family physician in primary care settings and more material resources available. Conclusions: There are some areas in which the Spanish family physician could learn from the latinamerican physician and viceversa.