The undergraduate course in Medicine as an environment, a source of development: what are their meanings?

Abstract

Physicians-teachers are, among other institutional actors, responsible for the technical, ethical and cognitive training of medical students, thus transforming medical teaching into an object of discussion over the last few decades. The theoretical reflections presented here are results from doctoral research that aimed to understand the unit "learning leading to development" of medical students, through the teaching activity carried out by professors, under the contributions of the Historical-Cultural Theory. Considering the important role that they play in the organization of the relationship maintained between students and knowledge, in the different learning environments, we assert that the environment plays a decisive role in the development of physician-teachers as well as students, provided that, for that, it reflects a scientific-pedagogical atmosphere shared between the Medicine course, the subjects inserted in it and the Higher Education Institution. We consider that such an atmosphere is materialized in the sharing of ideals, in the presence of a pedagogical intention based on a theoretical base and, above all, in the performance of knowledge as a mediator of these relationships, transforming the different learning spaces into development environments. In this context, the importance of the environment, as a source of development, in the relationships between those who teach and those who study, is sustained.