Curriculum implementation for Medicine course: overcoming challenges

Abstract: Introduction: One of the aims of Law 12.871/2013, also known as the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) Law, was the implementation of actions to reorganize the provision of Medicine courses. These actions would prioritize health regions with a lower ratio of vacancies and doctors per inhabitant and with a health service structure, and establish new parameters for medical training in Brazil. In turn, the National Curriculum Guidelines (DCNs) for Undergraduate Medicine Courses were created for the organization, development, and evaluation of these courses within the scope of the country’s higher education systems. The DCNs are the result of a long process of diagnosis and proposals for intervention in Medicine courses since the 1990s, which began with the CINAEM Project (National Interinstitutional Commission for the Evaluation of Medical Education), through the observation of many domestic and international experiences of curricular change implementations. Experience report: This work aims to present the process of construction and implementation of a competency-oriented curriculum, correlating, in this process, the teaching-learning methodologies and the curriculum model. Discussion: Teacher Development Workshops were offered with a focus on active learning methodologies through an organized movement among teachers, covering problem-based learning, team-based learning, dialogued lecture, realistic simulation and problematization. In specific modules, the evaluation of the process, the performance of the student and the institution were also addressed. Final Considerations: The implementation of this curriculum model became a landmark change in the institution, involving educational management, infrastructure, and implementation in the medical course, benefiting the whole school. The possibility of creating teaching scenarios beyond the HEI spaces provided greater knowledge of reality, opening space for new projects with the community, stimulating the exchange between teaching, service and the community.