Objective:

This article analyzes the process of a person who becomes ill to solve his/her condition of illness, the emergence of the sensation of need and how this leads him/her through different paths (itineraries) each with its processes and particularities, to search for attention. The study focuses on the search of subjects for institutional allopathic medical care, represented by the Hospital.

Methodology:

The methodology used was qualitative, from the grounded theory, through the application of 21 semi-structured interviews to patients from two hospitals in the department of Antioquia, Colombia. There were 1520 codes and 42 descriptive categories, which led to a higher category: feeling the need to consult generates expectations.

Results:

The results showed that the needs set up complex processes of search for health care, involving various subjects and institutions, in which strategies and resources are mobilized in order to receive attention. They also show that the need for health care is a product of the subjective conception of the disease based on life histories which are framed in culture, allowing the construction of the symptom and the disease, and leads the subject to a series of bureaucratic and therapeutic itineraries.

Conclusions:

It was concluded that the disease condition traversed by the subject’s history builds a need that leads him/her to some itineraries in which he/she elaborates multiple expectations in search of a solution that brings into play the hegemonic medical institution and the version of the subject on his/her body and suffering.

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