The consequences of a unique moment in the lives of medical students and professors in at least a century are leaving profound legacies on the Unicamp Medicine course. The changes that have occurred since March, according to Joana Fróes Bragança Bastos, coordinator of Undergraduate Medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp, will improve the quality of the course. For her, a positive characteristic of the pandemic, despite the humanitarian tragedy we are facing, is that it has awakened student engagement.
“The direct application of the knowledge acquired at college for the benefit of the community is a relevant way of experiencing this pandemic. In addition to providing assistance to the population, students had weekly scientific meetings to teach and update the scientific knowledge produced exponentially on the epidemiology and clinical management of the disease”, states the coordinator of the medical degree at Unicamp.
According to Joana, despite all the changes in the college routine, there are behaviors that must be linked to the professional lives of graduates. “The proactive stance in relation to the pandemic and belonging to the group encourage the training of critical, supportive and active young professionals. The students also demonstrated empathy and organizational capacity to seek ways of collaborating in health care for the population at a critical epidemiological moment in the country”, explains the Unicamp professor.
The massive and compulsory use of technology and social isolation did not prevent future doctors from taking real action in the health crisis. “Even if remotely, students had the opportunity to practice anamnesis and clinical reasoning, in addition to improving communication skills and discussing daily cases with faculty members. Some initiatives also allowed the exchange of information about facing the pandemic between students across the country. The voluntary work of students and teachers in remotely responding to the pandemic proved to be effective in collaborating in assisting and maintaining students' clinical practice”, says Joana, also revealing the importance that the pandemic had in transforming the lives of Unicamp's own teachers. .
According to her, the fact that all the educational material used in the courses has been posted on virtual platforms is allowing medical managers to evaluate both the adequacy and integration of the proposed content. From these analyses, according to the professor, strategies will emerge to improve undergraduate teaching.
“The continuous analysis of all material is extremely important to verify its suitability for the proposed educational objectives. This change promoted a more accurate look at educational content by managers and teachers, which has led to the improvement of subjects. We also had greater curricular integration, because objectives not achieved in any subject during the period of suspension of face-to-face activities needed to be accommodated at another time”, says Joana. In a more macro sense, the pandemic had a decisive contribution to the emergence of several academic reflections. “The discussions turned to the real training needs of general practitioners,” she says.
If students and teachers have been transformed and the curriculum and integration between disciplines have also been improved, Joana has no doubt in stating that this entire context is already part of the reality of Unicamp's graduation, which was already reevaluating the curriculum even before the pandemic. . “Covid-19 teaching is incorporated into the curriculum due to the urgency of training doctors to treat this new disease. The biggest pandemic in recent times is a unique moment for student training. They were able to monitor how the health service was adapted to provide care, how to train the team considering the characteristics of the disease, the challenges of treating a little-known pathology and the evolution of knowledge that occurred, valuing research and assistance.”
Real life
One of the important changes, still in relation to the day-to-day activities of classes, must occur in the behavior of students in relation to subjects where contact with society, whether in the hospital or on the street, tends to be greater. “The pandemic increased student engagement, student autonomy, social responsibility and reflection on fields of practice. In other words, students now have an appreciation for practical fields and seek to make the most of the contact they have with patients in the clinical part in a more organized and committed way”, says the professor.
The list of situations that show this greater attention from students to the practical world has some examples, according to Joana. “Participation in voluntary extension projects such as Telehealth, care in tents at the Hospital de Clínicas and collaboration in the flu vaccination campaign in basic health units during the pandemic are all situations that motivated student engagement and promoted knowledge and assistance during a new moment in medicine”, according to Joana.
In this context, together with the coordination of the Unicamp Medicine course, 150 medical and nursing students developed a telephone service program for the public to provide guidance on Covid-19. They work three shifts daily, from 8am to 20pm. “Remote contact is carried out by academics with teaching supervision 100% of the time. To date, the service has provided more than 1.800 services, predominantly in the Campinas area and region, but also, to a lesser extent, in all parts of the country”, says Joana. According to her, the students also decided to put a second type of project into action. “Orient Covid also encompasses a health education program that currently has 14 colleges in different regions of Brazil. This action seeks to be effective in reducing unnecessary demand for urgent and emergency services because it helps to avoid overloading the health system by directing the patient, according to their clinical condition, to the most appropriate location.”
At Unicamp, following all health protocols, medical classes were suspended from 1o to 4o year on March 13th. The 5th and 6th years continued on duty activities until April 29th. The beginning of the return, with the practical activities of the 6th year, took place on July 27th. The 5th year started again on September 8th and the 4tho and 3o years returned to practical activities on September 12th and October 5th, respectively. Theoretical activities remain in remote teaching.
“The conditions considered essential for the return were the availability of sufficient PPE for all students, at least 50% of the practice fields necessary for the training of generalist doctors in operation and human resources available for the supervision of teaching activities in 100% of time”, says Joana Bastos, coordinator of the undergraduate medicine course at Unicamp and professor of gynecological oncology at Unicamp.
