The new chronic and multi-factorial morbidity, the limited efficiency of classical medicine, as well as the preponderant position currently occupied by an individual in social life have imposed a patient-oriented approach as an ideal model of medical practice. The objective of this work is to evaluate physicians' listening skills, their empathy and their participation with patients in the health region of Sousse. It is a descriptive and transversal study on a collective of 133 practitioners working in the Sousse region in both the liberal and public sectors of care. Data were collected during the year 1999 through an auto-managed questionnaire. Among the main results: 28% of doctors declared having had difficulties while communicating with their patients and 31% of those asked do not give a great deal of importance to the psycho-social aspects of their patients. Only 31% of practitioners were in favour of patients participating in the decision-making process. This survey demonstrates that the domination of the bio-medical model of care, as much in teaching field as in medical practice, has weakened the basic competencies necessary for humanitarian medical practice based on the respect and the implication of the patient. Reforming the medical teaching curriculum with a focus on the person suffering and orientating the professional environment towards the community are both indispensable in order to reach a reconciliation between the patient's needs and the care available.