The reform of medical education. Some reflections.

The author points out the factors responsible for the changes verified in the last decades in the science and practice of medicine and in medical assistance; emphasizes the modern meaning of Medical Education as an evolutive, integrated and coherent process, and points out the scope of the university along with its development; defines the contemporary pedagogical objectives of undergraduate medical education, and points out the strategies which are considered the most appropriate to achieve them; reports the winds of change which have swept medical education in Portugal, and refers the obstacles that restrain its application to practice. Finally, the author emphasizes that the success of any educational reform requires the conscious and motivated engagement of its fundamental agents--the student and the professor.