The first year at medical education

experience report during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The 2014 Brazilian National Curriculum Guidelines for medical schools provide that the student develops social responsibility and care capacity based on the systemic integrality of the individual. The Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri in Diamantina/MG, through the Service-Learning-Community Integration Practices (PIESC) module allows students to go beyond a biological medicine, providing critical reflections on the social determinants of health and their importance in the illness process. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised the need to reinvent the way in which practices are applied and, therefore, it is relevant to describe the experiences in primary health care of a group of students during the first year of medical education at this very specific moment. The methodology used to point out the challenges and potentialities of this first contact with Primary Care was the Focus Group. Thus, the experience of contact in Primary Care, already in the first period of medical education, provided students with unique and satisfying learning opportunities even though vulnerabilities due to COVID-19 pandemic.