A formação do estilo de pensamento conservador na graduação médica

Abstract

The Curricular Guidelines of the Degree in Medicine direct the education of medical doctors in Brazil so that they become professionals that guarantee universal, equal and unbiased access to i ntegral, qualified and safe health. There is evidence, however, that a part of Brazilian professionals reproduces negationist speeches and practices medicine based on moralist values related to matters of gender, sexuality, and sexual and reproductive rights. These values represent the fundamental characteristic of conservative thinking. Moreover, post-truth, which is marked by scientific denialism, is one of the strategies of power of the conservative movement. This thesis research aimed to i nvestigate how the conservative thought style is developed during medical graduation. For that, a qualitative study was performed. The research used as field two medical schools of public universities in the Brazilian Northeast, and it applied three data collection techniques: document analysis; focus group; and i n-depth i nterviewing. The obtained data was analyzed through the method of themed content analysis. Research showed that, at l east in the two participant schools, medical graduation does not seem to be responsible for the development of the conservative thought style. On the contrary, students realize that they develop opposite perspectives to conservatism. In other words, perspectives that validate sexual and reproductive rights, respect the many expressions of sexuality and value evidence, in contrast with scientific denialism. The research identified some possible explanations for these results. They are: education methods following the evidence-based medicine paradigm coupled with person-centered medicine; development of empathy throughout the course; the socioeconomic profile of the public university medical school student; the pedagogic method; and the presence of exemplary professors. It is fundamental to perform new studies on the subject based on other approaches to conservatism and in universities with different features from the studied medical schools.