HEALTH OF THE ELDERLY

DISCOURSES AND EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES IN MEDICAL TRAINING

Abstract

Brazil and the world are going through the phenomenon of population aging, which in turn requires adequate training of professionals to care for the health of the elderly in their specific aspects. This article is the result of qualitative research that investigated the curricular unit Comprehensive Care for the Health of the Elderly, given in the medical course of a Federal University in the interior of Minas Gerais. Such course has the specificity of having been organized based on the National Curricular Guidelines for Medicine Courses, published in 2014, and this document guides the use of active teaching methodologies, curricular integration and early insertion of students in services of the health network. From the observation of theoretical and practical classes, writing of a field diary and interviews with students and teachers of that discipline, we approach the discourses and educational practices in order to identify the relationships between the regulations of medical education, curricular integration, the use of the curriculum by competences and of the active methodologies in teaching health of the elderly. It is concluded that there is an effort to follow the normative documents, with the adoption of curricular integration and active methodologies. However, there is no radical break with traditional teaching as the institutional posture allows the simultaneous coexistence of traditional classes and assessments in parallel active methodologies and formative assessment. The adoption of the guidelines is questioned whereas expanding methods, without a change in the concept of education that would support such methods.