Hidden curriculum in internship and medical residency in primary health care for children and adolescents

• Grant number: 22/08710-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: March 21, 2023
• End date: March 20, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Ivan Savioli Ferraz
• Grantee: Ivan Savioli Ferraz
• Host Investigator: Maria Athina Martimianakis
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Toronto (U of T), Canada

Abstract

The hidden curriculum is a group of patterns, values, assumptions, beliefs, rituals and messages not written in the formal curriculum that are established in interpersonal interactions between professors/preceptors and students, both in clinical and in other teaching-learning settings. The hidden curriculum is strongly influenced by the cultural and social environment in which it is inserted and may not be linked to the formal curriculum; however, the hidden curriculum significantly participates in the educational process of both the medical student and the resident physician. Most hidden curriculum studies have been carried out in clinical wards and hospitals; there are few studies in primary care, especially in Brazil. Additionally, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the consequent measures of social distancing taken to face the problem, caused major social changes that also affected the academic environment, especially in terms of personal relationships and teaching-learning methods. Objectives: To identify, describe and analyze elements of the hidden curriculum among medical interns, resident physicians and attending physicians/professors working in primary health care for children and adolescents in the city of Ribeirão Preto (SP, Brazil) before and after emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Interns of the medical course from the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo (RPMS-USP) and resident physicians at the University Hospital of the RPMS-USP together with their attending physicians /professors, who work in units of primary health care (primary health units with and without "Family Medicine Strategy") in the city of Ribeirão Preto (Brazil), were invited to participate in the study. To identify potential elements of the hidden curriculum, two data collection techniques were used: written narratives and focus groups. Both for the written narratives and for the data collected in the focus groups (discourses of the members of the groups), techniques of discourse analysis and content analysis will be used. (AU)