The value of family medicine/general medicine lies in its distinctiveness from academic medicine. It replaced categories with process and relationships. In its scientific method, emotional experience plays an important role. General medicine is unique in the medical field because it transcends the mind-body duality. Therefore, general practitioners should be encouraged to use a non-conventional approach when addressing the problems that arise in the consultation. Fostering reflective practice is an integral part of continuing professional development and training in general practice. Poetry is a method of reflection that can allow physicians to reflect on concepts and experiences. Haiku is a form of traditional Japanese poetry. It consists of a short poem, generally composed of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively (although this meter is flexible, and in English, syllable count is based strictly on pronunciation, not spelling). It is unrhymed and aims to express, in just three lines, a brief and sincere feeling, usually arising from the contemplation of nature or from feelings about love, death, illness, pain, or any lived experience. Using haikus in medical education is an excellent resource for activating critical thinking and humanizing medicine. In the end, medicine and poetry share the same thing: the art of observing and listening attentively. In this article, an illustrative case is presented that gives rise to six haikus to reflect on the basic concept of family medicine of "Community Care."

General/family medicine is unique in the medical field because it transcends the mind-body duality. Therefore, general practitioners should be encouraged to use unconventional ways of acquiring knowledge. Poetry can be a source of knowledge by providing us with perspectives on reality, and in this sense, it can also have a cognitive impact on us and our understanding of the world. Science and poetry have more in common than most people realize. Both rely on metaphor, which is as crucial to scientific discovery as it is to lyrical description [1-3].

Haikus is a traditional Japanese form of poetry. Using haikus in medical education is an excellent resource for activating reflection on concepts and experiences, critical and ethical thinking, creative abilities, and the humanization of medicine. Because they are such short texts, they require students to fill in the gaps with their own clinical judgment. For students heavily focused on linear, detail-oriented facts haikus act as an outlet to stimulate creativity and process feelings encourage to identify the most salient features of difficult topics (such as the fundamental concepts of general medicine) and pair them with supporting scientific evidence; It is a beautiful project to use haiku writing to help students process the emotional weight of clinical care, explore practical challenges, and articulate the essence of health and illness [4-9]. In this article, 6 haykus are used to reflect on “Community Care”, a basic concept of family medicine.

In a neighborhood with a low socioeconomic level, doctors at the health center detect an alarming increase in social isolation and falls in elderly people living in old buildings. The team decides to meet with the neighborhood association and the city council to map the blocks without elevators and organize exercise workshops in the neighborhood park.

Haukus For Thought

A united woods withstands the heavy tempest that a lone tree fears. Outside the clinic, health is managed and sustained street by busy street.

No one is an isle, the well-being of just one heals the neighbor's house. Caring for the block, knowing that we are all hands intertwined as one.

A grand human stream beating to the exact rhythm under the asphalt. Living neighborhood, health that is shared by everyone, one single river.

Pedagogical Key

Demystify that medicine only happens within the hospital or health center; The social determinants are in the community.

Discussion Questions

Why isn't the solution to this health problem found in prescribing vitamin D supplements or individualized physiotherapy at the center? What is "social prescribing"?

Concept Of Community Care

In general medicine, the concept of Community Care refers to the provision of health services, support and treatment outside hospitals, directly in the environment where patients live [10]. But, community is not established solely through geography, but through "links." Conceptually, a community can be a neighborhood, a "community" of interests with or without geographical boundaries, or the sum of a person's relationships and connections. Thus, community care from the perspective of the family physician attending to individual patients, means giving importance to and taking into account "contexts": a) creating contexts (relationships, connections), and b) considering contexts (environments, actors, resources) [11-19]. Community care is about moving from medicalizing social relationships to socially contextualizing medical practice. It is not that healthcare professionals should solve social problems, but rather that social problems are part of the consultation. Here, social prescribing is a mechanism that allows family physicians to connect patients with non-medical community services to improve their overall health and well-being. Instead of prescribing drugs, the doctor prescribes activities, emotional support, or social resources that address the root causes of the patient's distress, which are often social, economic, or environmental [20, 21].