Como o professor médico percebe a sua formação ao longo da trajetória: em busca das marcas constituintes do processo de formação docente

Abstract

The present study is linked to a research line: Formation, Knowledges and Professional Development. Their aim is to gain access to the perceptions of a group of medical professors at the Federal University of Santa Maria in regard to their educational process. As is well known in the literature, one of the main characteristics of university professors is that they were selected to teach in a specific area, and their technical competence in this area is almost exclusively the basis for their selection. The teaching dimension is, almost always, relegated to a less important plane, considered much more as a natural ability that each one possesses, rather than a skill that can, and should, be perfected. Medical professors are not an exception to this rule. Most complete their course in constant interaction with students, colleagues, the institution where they work and the social group of which they make part. With the intention of identifying the constituent marks of this process, this study is based on auto-biographical reconstructions, complemented by narrative interviews carried out with five professors from the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria, each one of the five representing one of five main departments of the medical school. From the Analysis Content emerge five categories: (1) Medical professors are persons, too; (2) To be a physician; (3) To be a medical professor; (4) To be a medical professor is different than to be a physician and (5) The curricular reform in the Federal University of Santa Maria. The conclusions of the study, which do not differ greatly from those found in the literature, show that the professors initially chose to study medicine, with great support of this choice from their families, and as a second choice, chose a teaching career. The choice to become professors, in most cases, came about from the influence of older professors, whose teaching models were initially copied and adopted as references, being that there was no teacher education offered, nor was it ever demanded or valued by the institution. Improvement in this area, as well as the study of teaching theory and techniques was only effectuated at the moment that these individuals began post-graduate work, where they had access to material written by professionals in the area of education. To conclude, the work brings to light some conceptions and impressions of these professors as to the curricular reform of the course of medicine at the Federal University of Santa Maria, specially that it is necessary, it is well conducted but it needs a constant attention with the intent that old habits of the institution do not lead the proposal to an end. One last finding was that despiting their original area, most of the subjects impressions was very similar, sugesting that it is necessary to think about the development of the "professorality", a common identity to the professors.