RESUMO
The teaching of family medicine and general practice should aim to develop an appreciation of the unique nature and role of the specialty. Teachers should relate patient cases to the principles of family medicine. These principles include (1) compassionate care; (2) a generalist/holistic approach focusing on the whole person, family, and community; (3) continuity of relationship, i.e., building a patient-physician bond of trust; (4) reflective mindfulness; and (5) lifelong learning. The curriculum, instructional strategy, and assessment should be carefully aligned. Core competencies include patient-centered communication, physical examination skills, clinical procedures, palliative care, humanities in medicine, holistic care, shared decision-making, family therapy, home and community visits, chronic disease care, problem-based documentation, team-based care, data-driven improvement, information mastery, ethics and professionalism, and work-life balance. Family medicine/general practice is defined as the medical specialty that manages common and long-term illnesses, focusing on overall health and well-being. Hence, clerkship schedules should maximize clinical exposure and opportunities for self-reflection. A learner-centered approach should begin with a self-identified inventory of learning needs based on the curriculum; next, these needs should be chosen as topics for student presentations. Teaching methods should include mini-workshops: a combination of didactic lectures and small-group exercises. Individual face-to-face formative feedback should occur at midcourse and culminate in a group reflection on the learning experience. Clinical supervision should gradually decrease as each resident demonstrates safe patient care. Procedure skills training should be closely supervised, formally documented, and constitute about one-fourth of learning sessions.
RESUMO
To investigate the content and design preferences of printed health education leaflets among Arab patients. A survey questionnaire to 17 subjects [women: n = 8, men: n = 9; age range 17-70 years] and three focus-group discussions [total 16 participants] were used to assess preferences by showing samples of Arabic health education materials. The questionnaire was administered by interviewers. For the focus-group discussions, the sessions were conducted by a trained interviewer, audio recorded and analyzed thematically. The subjects' educational level was from no formal schooling to university level. In survey component, all patients preferred photographs over clipart. Typeface ['font'] preferences were for Simplified Arabic in 8 subjects [47%] and Mudir MT in 7 [41%]; the 16-point font size was favored by 14 [82%] patients. In the three focus-group discussions, themes that participants expressed included use of standard Arabic with local dialects, short sentences, and culturally appropriate advice with practical and quantifiable examples. The participants preferred health education materials to be color trifold brochures illustrated with pictures and not clipart and written in Arabic using the Simplified Arabic font in 16-point size