Planetary Health Education in Botucatu Faculty of Medicine/UNESP - São Paulo - Brazil
Place
Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil
Teaching Center
Botucatu Medical School - UNESP
Participants
98 third-year medical students
Description
All 98 third-year medical students participated in 7 classes (28 hours) with the central theme of PH through September, 2021 (one immersive week) within the Health Surveillance Module of the curriculum. Active methodologies were used with 6 small groups of 16 students each, who had lectures with 7 PH specialists from Brazil and England, interspersing with practical group activities with local professors. Learners also interacted with 14 PH Brazilian Campus Ambassadors (Brazilian Program) and members of the PH Brazilian Club in order to deepen their knowledge.
Students were given a clinical case (John’s case) and the assignment to: develop a network diagram, connecting clinical, psychosocial, and environmental aspects; propose an approach with the patient during the medical consultation called “1 minute for the planet”, that consists of briefly approaching with the patient the relationship between their health and planetary health; and propose a community approach. Also, an Interconnection Within Nature Activity was enrolled, which evoked personal memories of students.
Findings
The pedagogical methodologies used proved to be very adequate, the students evaluated very well. They were motivated and recognized the great importance of discussing PH in medical training, identifying applications in their personal and professional life. A significant amount suggested that the contents could be better learned if spread over more weeks of classes and with more time for reflection and study. As a negative point, they stated that the volume of material was very large.
This proposal is one of the first integration of PH in the required medical curriculum in Brazil and was successful in providing the teaching of PH broadly and stimulating the complexity thinking of students. The collaboration of PH specialists and ambassadors was fundamental.
This experience was taught in 2021 for medical students and continues to be offered as part of the required curriculum, continuing the work of disseminating essential knowledge about PH.
Experiment report authors
Rafaela Brugalli Zandavalli
Family Doctor, Master’s Student (PPgEci UFRGS/Brazil)
rafaelazandavalli@gmail.com
Jeyse Rani de Sales Nascimento
Student of the Pharmacy Course (UFCG/Brazil)
Tatiana Souza de Camargo
PhD., Associate Professor (UFRGS/ Brazil) and Education Fellow (PHA)
Karina Pavão Patrício
PhD, Associate Professor, FMB/UNESP - Brazil
karina.pavao@unesp.br
Poster of this experiment report
