SOFRIMENTO E ADOECIMENTO PISÍQUICO DO ESTUDANTE DEMEDICINA À LUZ DA TEORIA HISTÓRICO-CULTURAL

Abstract

The teaching experience allows us to frequently perceive crises of certainty and dissatisfaction among university students, triggering losses in these students' academic performance and quality of life. This research investigated and discussed the processes and determinants of psychological suffering in medical students at a Higher Education institution in Mineiros - GO in the light of Historical-Cultural Theory. We used investigative resources based on questionnaires and scales applied to seventy-four medical students, which gave us an overview of the students' socioeconomic and cultural characterization, the analysis of quality of life and the perception of stress and psychological suffering. We sequentially carried out two focus groups with a total of eleven students from the initial and final years of the basic cycle of the course. The method of analysis applied was based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of the Historical-Cultural theory, which has its epistemological root in Historical- Dialetic Materialism. The analyzes demonstrate the influence of professional perspectives and the stigmas of the medical profession in triggering psychological suffering, considering historicity and the constant interaction between the singular, the particular and the universal. The analyzes revealed the contradictions inherent to medical training, highlighting the influence of medical culture in the reproduction of hegemonic values. This study also highlighted psychological distress as a complex phenomenon, rooted in motivations, social stigmas, academic pressures and contradictions of professional practice. The need for critical awareness in medical education is highlighted in the face of the structural challenges that permeate medical training under the aegis of capitalism. Discussing these aspects in a reflective way with students and teachers can promote conscious professional training and promote strategies to minimize psychopathological symptoms as long as they are considered in the context of their historical and cultural constitution