[Physician's humanistic qualities expected by society]

Forming physicians educative institutions must pay attention to society expectations about health professionals. Physicians and patients as users of health services were interviewed in order to know what the physician's profile is to be qualified as satisfactory. Results were analyzed with a qualitative method. Thirty seven health professionals were interviewed. Group included: physicians, nurses, social medical workers, medical office assistants and medicine students. We interviewed three patient groups (hypertensive and diabetic patients) and 30 additional patients with age range from 18 to 50, most of them female. Characteristics that were more frequently mentioned by patients: skills in communication in order to give them better information about its disease, kindly and humane care (compassion and emphatic). These aspects are related more with attitude than to knowledge. Therefore, we can conclude that forming physician institutions should not worry only their graduate's cognitive skills, but also to define their humane qualities. This would make possible to establish suitable pedagogic strategies in order to achieve and assess humane formation to fit with society expectations.