Revista nº 813

D’Ottavio Cattani AE | Science and medical discipline integration 155 Actual Med. 2021; 106(813): 8-15 lectures and complemented, particularly with problem solving, by professionally trained teachers during their two-hour practical meetings (two per week during 30 weeks per year in both cases) From an integrated standpoint, both implementations demanded: (a) motivating, didactic, valid, reliable, and up-to-date knowledge transmission; (b) fostering atti- tudes, habits, and values, advocated by examples and liable to emulation, and (c) knowledge application and development of cognitive, communication, and motor skills through problem-solving. Finally, the evaluating step was carried out during the formal six periodic evaluations and the final one through oral and/or written tests in charge of the abovementioned Ph.D. professors and trained teachers. Furthermore, a complementary interaction was per- formed with Biology, another first-year discipline in- cluding Methods in Scientific Research among its ac- tivities, for establishing the eventual positive impact of the Histology and Embryology strategy. Table 2 synthesizes steps, method and responsible of the strategy. For fifteen years, an average of 25% of the enrolled students (2000 ± 500 per year) repetitively did not start the course. An average of 25% of the coursing ones dropped out before completing all the proposed chances for remaining able to take the final disciplinary evaluation while 55 ± 5 % of those students, who completed the course in good terms, could take this kind of examination. In this regard, 75 ± 5% of the students were usually promoted to the second year. In this framework, this strategy, combining the discipline with the first stages of scientific thought, turned out to be satisfactory to an average of 80% of them according to a brief, anonymous and voluntary poll carried out immediately after that examination. Furthermore, throughout its application, Biology reported in parallel a positive impact on its corresponding competencies. This strategy, implemented between 1986 and 2001 when a curricular transformation changed the abovementioned approach, showed to be feasible and fruitfully relevant. In the new curriculum, Histology, Embryology, and other first and second-year disciplines became interdisciplinary areas and scientific competencies were brought together in an instrumental one: Methodology of Scientific Research (10). Without being replaced by other equivalent process, both changes prevented the implementation of the strategy as formerly carried out evidencing that, sometimes, advances in many respects may produce regressions in certain others. STEPS METHOD RESPONSIBLE Planning Scientific competencies to be trained integrated with the histological and/or embryological ones Design of histological and/or embryological lectures and practical meetings according to A Ph.D. professors before learning meetings Implementation Two-hour theoretical lectures Two-hour practical meetings with problem-solving challenges (Two per week during 30 weeks per year in both cases) Ph.D. professors Trained teachers Evaluation Six periodic evaluations and a final one employing oral and/or written tests Complementary interaction with Biology, another first-year discipline Ph.D. professors and trained teachers Table 2. Details of the strategy: steps, method and responsible for each one of them RESULTS DISCUSSION