Table 2.

Family medicine knowledge and skills

Subthemes	Contexts
Family physician as the kindest and most tolerant doctor	Personal
	“If you are a nice person, you like being with people, you are going to be so whatever you do, and if you are more reserved, you are going to be so whatever you will study… People have to know themselves a bit: if I am an unpleasant person I am not going to choose something I have to talk to people all the time… Then, it is very important that a family physician knows how to treat people… At least, to be nice.” (2nd)*
	“That cannot be taught, the human intercourse is not teachable, you have it or not. What will make a difference between one person or another will be their manner and this cannot be learned during medical training.” (2nd)
Family medicine, the largest breadth but less depth in medical wisdom	Personal
	“We all have the impression that, if a family physician can fix a problem, then this should not be so difficult to be fixed…” (2nd)
	“There has been a different evolution for family medicine with regard to the other specialties. Family medicine is stuck, they keep doing the same thing that they have done for the last, say, 50 years…” (6th)
	Academic
	“[…] a much more general knowledge of everything, but of a little less depth. Family physicians need much more knowledge than specialists. A family physician, if she or he has been well trained, can both remove a strange body in an eye and treat someone suffering from a psychological problem, a depression… Something that an ophthalmologist will never take care of. That is, a family physician needs knowledge from all the specialties.” (2nd)
	“If I choose intensive medicine, I can forget something from dermatology. However, the family physician has to know something of dermatology, something of cardiology… A bit of everything.” (6th)**
	“Family Medicine should be integrated into undergraduate medical studies… If we study medicine over six years, for the type of work all of us know a family physician does, one should be able to do it when we graduate; there is no reason why we should study four more years for doing this job ” (6th)
	Health care system
	“If you are in a community health centre, you have to consider the type of population you are taking care of. It is not the same to work in a clinic located in a gypsy neighbourhood than in a wealthy territory. Then, you must know a bit about the social and cultural characteristics of your clientele.” (2nd)
	Social
	“I think that the majority of people in society consider that the family doctor is the physician who holds less knowledge, that he is not so advanced in knowledge than someone from the hospital.” (6th)
Family physicians as first medical contact and referrer to specialties	Academic
	“The family physician is the coarse detector [of diseases]… and then he refers to the fine detector, who is the specialist.” (6th)
	Health care system
	“A family physician constitutes the first contact with the system. If there are new diseases, he must know them, and be able to identify their symptoms. He has to know that disease; otherwise he will not refer the patient to the specialist. A family physician must study even more than a person just devoted to neurology, or cardiology… He must know about everything! I think that one has to study hard in every specialty, but family medicine is one of the most demanding.” (2nd)

^*2nd year medical student.

^**6th year medical student.