Introduction:

Family medicine specialists are a cornerstone for attaining population health; therefore, their professional improvement is necessary, aiming at updating knowledge about the advances of medicine, in order to optimize the quality of comprehensive medical care provided to the individual and the community; as well as professional improvement particularly for the care of patients with metabolic diseases.

Objective:

To design a postgraduate course to improve the performance of family medicine specialists in the care of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Methods:

A developmental, educational research was conducted between March 2019 and March 2021, finishing with the design of the referred course. Theoretical and empirical methods were used, upon the base of literature and document review. The synthetic-analytical, historical-logical and inductive-deductive methods were applied to define criterions from the reviewed materials or the result of the empirical inquiries, obtained through surveys, based on the criterions of authors and the contribution of family medicine specialists according to expert criterions.

Results:

The learning needs of family medicine specialists were identified, upon whose basis a course made up of five topics was designed, with an active and participative approach, through different teaching-learning ways and emphasizing the use of group work, being a way that acknowledgedly favors a reflexive and critical attitude among health professionals. The course was validated by experts, in terms of its objectives, contents, didactic-methodological structure, and social relevance.

Conclusions:

The designed course about the theoretical-practical aspects for the care of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus will contribute to the professional improvement of family medicine specialists and will result in their better performance.