Introduction:

In defensive medicine the doctor loses reliability and confidence in himself, modifies his practice due to fear of being sued. Therefore, the knowledge of medical science must be complemented with the border knowledge that becomes necessary by virtue of the fact that social transformations have modified the doctor-patient relationship.

Objective:

It exposes the need that the doctors have to empower themselves through knowledge in the areas of communication and law to communicate assertively with the patient, knowing in a broad way the legal framework that regulates the right to health, including not only their obligations as professionals but also their rights and legal guidelines on which to guide their actions.

Method:

A qualitative study was carried out with a purposive and intentional sampling with the in-depth interview technique. Participated 30 physicians from different specialties who practice in public and / or private consultation in Monterrey city.

Results:

The investigation yielded 23 subcategories of analysis that allow to understand more deeply the defensive medical practice and its related factors. Among these stand out: the lack of sufficient legal knowledge regarding the medical act that the doctor recognizes as necessary, as well as the need to develop a communicative competence in the doctor that positively impacts the doctor-patient relationship.

Conclusions:

As a result of this investigation, it was known that doctors express a need to receive training in these two disciplines, law and communication, which converge in the doctor-patient relationship and the desire that they have for receive this instruction not only to future doctors but also to graduated doctors, through continuous training courses. The inclusion of this knowledge as complementary to the training of the physicians can be a factor that reduces the incidence towards defensive medical practice.