Empleo del individuo como recurso para el aprendizaje

objective: to stress the importance of the utilization of the healthy or sick individual, the family and the community in the teaching-learning process. methods: a descriptive study was carried out in an urban community of the guaira-macuto parish, state of vargas, in the bolivarian republic of venezuela, during the course 2005-2006. this study was applied to the preclinical cycle, with the integration of 17 first-year medical students, distributed into 3 teaching family physician’s offices. the variant patients’ problem management (problemic situation) was used as a simulation technique. results: the academic results were satisfactory. conclusions: the utilization of the individual as a learning resource allowed the student to acquire indispensable abilities and knowledge for their future performance, to attain satisfactory results in their evaluation and to get familiar with and interact with the reality in the health services