Rehabilitation in the core graduate medical curricula at university of São Paulo school of medicine: The student's perception

Introduction/Background Rehabilitation is a key health strategy for the 21st century. Increase the number of medical graduates aware of rehabilitation competencies and skills is a success indicator of strengthening and extending the provision of rehabilitation services. Our objective was to evaluate a novel teaching method to third year medical students based mostly in student-centered techniques. This course was offered at Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil. Material and method One hundred sixty-eight third year medical students responded an anonymous survey evaluating their perception of a 12-hour discipline on Rehabilitation. The Discipline was developed collaboratively in the 2017 Medical Teaching and Learning Innovation Program. Teaching materials were available to students at an educational platform to promote interaction and collaboration. The didactic curriculum was presented in the case-method format. Students performed the anamnesis and physical examination, with emphasis on the functional semiology, developing a treatment plan with functional goals, under the supervision of physical and rehabilitation medicine specialists, who mentored the activities. Members of the multidisciplinary team participated in the discussions. Rehabilitation interventions were performed as needed. Students were requested to produce and to present a mental map of the evaluated cases. Results 95.3% of the students responded the anonymous survey. 88.2% of the responding students considered rehabilitation as an important discipline in medical training. For 90.8% of the students, the overall assessment for the course was “very good” or “good” and 59.6% requested the increase in its duration. Conclusion Third year medical students perceive rehabilitation as an important discipline in medical education. The overall assessment for the course was “very good” or “good”, and there is a request for the increase in its duration from more than half of the students. Improvement of course methodology in rehabilitation may improve to attract more medical students to rehabilitation specialty.