Avaliação da percepção discente sobre o ensino e aplicação prática da bioética em um curso de medicina na Amazônia

Abstract

The term "bioethics" was created by Potter in 1971. He wanted to associate the technological/biological knowledge with human beliefs which is extremely necessary in the development of knowledge and its practice. The study of bioethics still needs more application in medicine graduation courses over the country despite its development in the last few decades. Bioethics is very important for the medical education. Therefore, it is necessary to make an evaluation of its application as well as an evaluation of the disposition of students to apply it in their daily lives. The goal of this article is to make a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the bioethics learning process. It will also evaluate the perception of the students about the learning process over the graduation course and the influence on the students' attitudes. In order to do that analysis, the data was gathered through the use of a survey. The survey has been applied to students of medicine from the first to the eighth semesters in a private university in the city of Belém, Pará. According to the survey, the majority of the students has the theoretical knowledge about the principles of bioethics. Yet they struggle when theyneed to apply this knowledge on contextualized situations involving clinical practice. They usually perform better on a research context. Furthermore, the students know little about the difference between bioethics and medical ethic. Nonetheless, the students believe that the way bioethics is approached in the medicine graduation course is satisfactory. They also acknowledge its importance in the medical education. They understand that bioethics is mostly approached during the first semester of the course in classes such as MISC and Clinical skills. They think the existence of a formal class such as bioethics is important in their academic curriculum and the first and the last semesters of the course are great opportunities for classes like that. Despite the importance of bioethics, some students say they could not change their behavior after studying it.