Revista nº 813

D’Ottavio Cattani AE | Science and medical discipline integration 153 Actual Med. 2021; 106(813): 8-15 Medicine offers several ways of professional practice. Beyond the usually esteemed medical activity (i.e., healthcare medicine), scientific research, universi- ty teaching, institutional management, and public health are also worth mentioning. Whatever their future professional practice, scientif- ic training is extremely relevant for undergraduates. This is reflected in consistent bibliographic reports on implementing research challenges, However, those reports – even some from our own – usually limit scientific training to a part of the med- ical curriculum and separately of any medical disci- pline (1- 6). Consequently, this approach intends to go further seizing each discipline for raising scientific thought from the beginning to the end of the medical curric- ulum. Hence, students may build progressively, piece by piece, a solid and useful scientific construct from the first to the last discipline of their career. In this context, this paper presents a long-standing strategy, integrating scientific and disciplinary com- petencies (in this case, Histology and Embryology). This integrated strategy was applied for fifteen years to 2000 ± 500 students per year while they were studying Histology and Embryology, one of the first-year dis- ciplines. It was part of the progressive scientific cur- ricular training registered in Table 1 which provides an orienting outline to clarify the related contributions coming from Histology and Embryology. The process included planning, implementing and evaluating steps. The planning step, carried out by Ph.D. professors be- fore learning meetings, required: (A) Establishing the scientific competencies to be trained integrated with the histological and/or em- bryological ones. Among them: proficiency in English along with novel information and communication techniques (ICT) (actually, a prerequisite), science (or- igin, evolution and characteristics), types of scientific reasoning: deduction, incomplete induction, abduc- tion, and analogy, null and alternative hypothesis, cor- roboration and refutation of hypotheses, critical think- ing (confrontation of pros and cons) and quantitative and qualitative methods; (B) Design of histological and/or embryological lectures and practical meetings INTRODUCTION MATERIAL AND METHODS Increasing scientific curricular training 1 st . year Former scientific contributions from Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Biology and Medicine and Society 2 nd . year Statistical techniques - Graphic interpretations Optional joining to preexisting research teams for initial training 3 rd . year Critical Reading of scientific articles Level 1 (3) Optional joining to preexisting research teams for initial or advanced training 4 th . year Critical Reading of scientific articles Level 2 (3) Optional joining to preexisting research teams for initial or advanced training 5 th . year Trained Critical Reading of scientific articles Optional joining to preexisting research teams for initial or advanced training 6 th . year Trained Critical Reading of scientific articles Optional joining to preexisting research teams for initial training Table 1. Curricular outline until 2001 included