Demographic aspects and access to the pedagogical projects of medical courses in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: The expansion of higher education in Brazil is recent. In the medical field, with the advent of the “Mais Médicos” Program, this expansion became feasible and culminated with the publication of new National Curricular Guidelines (DCN, Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais) for undergraduate medical courses. The Pedagogical Course Project (PCP) translates what is accomplished in the course and works as an instrument of communication between the institution and society. The analysis of the PCPs of Higher Education Institutions provides the identification of elements that point to the convergence or move away from the changes proposed by the DCN 2014. Objective: To describe demographically in Brazil the number of public and private medical courses by state and region of the federation, the number of available vacancies, and access to the PCPs of these schools through a systematized methodology. Method: A study was carried out in all institutions with medical courses in Brazil by the year 2021. The search for the PCPs was carried out in the institutional website. In case of lack of information, an electronic message was sent to the medical course coordination. When it was not possible to contact the coordinator directly through the institutional website, a message was sent to the coordinator by accessing their curriculum lattes. Results: A total of 336 medical schools were identified, 115 (34.2%) of which were public and 226 (65.8%) private ones. A higher concentration of courses was observed in the southeast region (41.3%), followed by the northeast region (24.6%). Of the public institutions, the northeast region has the highest concentration of schools (35.6%), followed by the southeast region (26%). The opposite was observed regarding the private institutions. A total of 134 PCPs were obtained (39.8% of the total), 83% from public schools and 17% from private ones. Conclusion: Although the availability of the pedagogical information document on the institution’s website is an obligation, this was not verified in reality, which makes it necessary to implement policies for valuing and monitoring PCP availability, thus facilitating its access by the most interested parties: students, the academic community and researchers in the field of medical education.