Contributions of theatrical activities to medical education from the perspective of students and alumni: a qualitative studyAbstract
Contemporary medical education faces the challenge of integrating technical and humanistic competencies, overcoming the predominance of the traditional biomedical model. Among the practices that facilitate this integration, theater has proven to be a privileged space for developing sensitivity, ethical reflection, and relational skills. This qualitative study analyzed the experiences of 33 medical students and alumni participating in a university theater group, seeking to understand how this experience influences their personal, social, and professional trajectories. Semi-structured interviews conducted between January and February 2025 were examined through thematic content analysis, ensuring rigor by theoretical saturation and triangulation. Four interrelated formative areas emerged: personal transformations, relational competencies, professional impacts, and belonging. Theater proved to be an aesthetic-affective formative methodology, reinforcing the pertinence of artistic practices in medical education as strategies for comprehensive training and the humanization of care.
Keywords
Medical education; Theater; Empathy; Humanization of care; Professional training
Resumo
A formação médica contemporânea enfrenta o desafio de integrar competências técnicas e humanísticas, superando o predomínio do modelo biomédico tradicional. Entre as práticas que favorecem essa articulação, o teatro tem se mostrado espaço privilegiado para desenvolvimento de sensibilidade, de reflexão ética e de habilidades relacionais. Este estudo qualitativo analisou as experiências de 33 estudantes e egressos de Medicina participantes de um grupo teatral universitário, buscando compreender como essa vivência repercute em suas trajetórias pessoais, sociais e profissionais. As entrevistas semiestruturadas, realizadas entre janeiro e fevereiro de 2025, foram examinadas por meio da análise de conteúdo temática, assegurando rigor por saturação teórica e triangulação. Emergiram quatro eixos formativos interligados: transformações pessoais, competências relacionais, impactos profissionais e pertencimento. O teatro revelou-se metodologia estético-afetiva de formação, reforçando a pertinência de práticas artísticas no ensino médico como estratégias de formação integral e humanização do cuidado.
Palavras-chave
Educação médica; Teatro; Empatia; Humanização da assistência; Formação profissional
Resumen
La formación médica contemporánea enfrenta el desafío de la integración de competencias técnicas y humanísticas, superando el predominio del modelo biomédico tradicional. Entre las prácticas que favorecen tal articulación, el teatro ha demostrado ser un espacio privilegiado para el desarrollo de la sensibilidad, de la reflexión ética y de las habilidades relacionales. Este estudio cualitativo analizó las experiencias de 33 estudiantes y egresados de Medicina participantes de un grupo teatral universitario, buscando entender cómo esa vivencia repercute en sus trayectorias personales, sociales y profesionales. Las entrevistas semiestructuradas, realizadas entre enero y febrero de 2025, se examinaron por medio del análisis de contenido temático, asegurando rigor por saturación teórica y triangulación. Surgieron cuatro ejes formativos interconectados: transformaciones personales, competencias relacionales, impactos profesionales y pertenencia. El teatro se mostró como una metodología estético-afectiva de formación, reforzando la pertinencia de prácticas artísticas en la enseñanza médica como estrategias de formación integral y humanización del cuidado.
Palabras clave
Educación médica; Teatro; Empatía; Humanización de asistencia; Formación profesional
Introduction
Traditional medical education, historically guided by the biomedical model, has prioritized technical and scientific mastery and early specialization, often at the expense of developing humanistic, relational, and ethical skills1. This approach, centered on disease and clinical objectivity, has been questioned for its inability to accommodate the complexity of health and illness processes, which require professionals who are sensitive, reflective, and committed to comprehensive care2.
In this context, various initiatives have sought to broaden the humanistic foundations of medical education. Among these, Narrative-Based Medicine—proposed by Rita Charon and developed by authors such as Trisha Greenhalgh3,4 —stands out, emphasizing the act of listening to patients’ narratives and reflecting on the human dimensions of illness.
In recent decades, the National Curriculum Guidelines for medical programs5,6 have emphasized the training of physicians capable of integrating science and sensitivity, recognizing communication, empathy, and active listening as central dimensions of the educational process. This guideline aligns with an international movement to promote the medical humanities, which advocate for the incorporation of artistic practices as tools for raising awareness and fostering ethical reflection7.
In this context, empathy can be understood as the ability to recognize and understand the experiences and emotions of others, while maintaining the necessary distinction between oneself and the patient8. This perspective is linked to the notion of the humanizing care, which is understood as valuing the subjective, social, and relational dimensions present in health and illness processes. This approach guides professional practices that are grounded in listening, respect, and comprehensive care9.
Among the languages employed by the medical humanities, theater stands out as an aesthetic and relational practice capable of promoting the exercise of otherness, enhancing active listening, and allowing for the exploration of roles and emotions10-12. Research shows that its incorporation into medical education fosters the development of empathy, clinical communication, and an understanding of patients’ subjective experiences13,14. Thus, theater transcends the role of a didactic resource and assumes the function of a formative space that integrates cognition, emotion, and corporeality—dimensions often neglected in conventional curricula.
In Brazil, various initiatives have brought together art and medical education, notably the university group Show Medicina15. The group was founded in the 1950s by medical students and faculty amid a period of cultural effervescence and the growth of student movements at Brazilian universities. It emerged as an initiative that aimed to integrate art, critical reflection, and academic life.
Over the decades, it has established itself as a space for collective creation in which successive generations of students participate in writing, rehearsing, and staging the performances. Its organization is based on the active participation of students and the intergenerational knowledge transmission between more experienced members and newcomers. It is estimated that, throughout its history, hundreds of students have been part of the collective.
The performances consist of satirical and comedy skits that address topics related to medical education, university life, and broader social issues, interspersed with visual and musical numbers produced by the students themselves. Held annually, the performances typically draw large audiences, establishing the group as a unique space for artistic experimentation and formative interaction within the context of medical education.
Given this context, the present study seeks to understand how and under what conditions participation in a university theater group influences the professional, personal, and social development of medical students, using a qualitative approach and thematic content analysis.
Methodology
Study design
This is a descriptive and exploratory study with a qualitative approach, aimed at understanding the educational contributions of participation in the university theater group Show Medicina. The research was grounded in a phenomenological understanding of lived experience, guided by the suspension of preconceptions (epoché) and open-minded listening to participants’ experiences16,17. This perspective allowed us to capture the meanings participants attributed to their experiences within the group, seeking to grasp the essence of the phenomenon.
Methodological rigor was ensured through complementary strategies: theoretical saturation18; systematic recording of the analytical process (audit trail)19; ongoing discussion among the researchers as a form of cross-validation; and partial triangulation of sources through consultation of supplementary group documents (scripts and audiovisual recordings). Although there was no formal double coding or collective feedback to the participants, the process was conducted with transparency, theoretical coherence, and interpretive consistency. The absence of formal feedback (member checking) is related to the retrospective nature of the interviews and the geographical dispersion of the participants.
One of the researchers, a former member of the group under study, kept a reflective field journal in which he recorded impressions, perceptions, and emerging questions throughout the investigation. These records were used as supplementary material for reflection during the analytical process, helping to contextualize the participants’ statements and address potential biases arising from the researcher’s proximity to the field. The interpretations derived from the diary were discussed with the other researcher on the team, establishing a process of reflective triangulation that helped enhance the study’s interpretive consistency. This strategy is in line with the criteria for credibility and rigor proposed by Lincoln and Guba19 for qualitative research.
The report followed international guidelines for qualitative research: COREQ (Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research)20,21 and SRQR (Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research)22, ensuring transparency, traceability, and descriptive rigor.
Stage 1 – Planning and data collection instrument
A semi-structured interview guide was developed, consisting of eleven open-ended questions aimed at exploring motivations, interpersonal learning, the development of empathy and communication, professional impacts, and perceptions regarding artistic engagement. The development of the instrument was guided by the study’s theoretical framework and supplemented by the prior experience of a researcher who was part of the group, which helped ensure that the questions were well-suited to the reality under investigation.
Throughout the process, the researcher kept a reflective field journal, recording contextual observations, personal reactions, and analytical decisions. This record served as an essential tool for maintaining epoché, making it possible to identify potential subjective biases and maintain a reflective stance toward the empirical material23.
Stage 2 – Data collection procedures
The interviews were conducted between January and February 2025 on the Google Meet platform and lasted an average of 13 to 45 minutes. Thirty-three medical students and alumni participated, all of whom had been members of the theater group for at least one year. The group included a diversity of genders, roles within the group (on stage, in the band, black light, and backstage), and stages of the medical program. The sociodemographic characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1.
Invitations were shared in the Show’s WhatsApp groups, and appointments were scheduled individually with the researcher. Data collection was terminated upon theoretical saturation, when new accounts no longer added substantial elements to the emerging categories.
The interviews were recorded with consent, transcribed in full using Pinpoint software, and manually reviewed to ensure fidelity to the participants’ statements. Listening was attentive and non-directive, allowing for pauses and silences that sometimes revealed latent meanings.
Stage 3 – Data analysis
The text material was subjected to the thematic content analysis proposed by Bardin24, carried out in three interconnected stages::
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Pre-analysis: a cursory reading of the transcripts and the creation of the corpus;
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Exploration of the material: identification and manual coding of units of discourse and grouping into thematic categories;
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Processing and interpretation: synthesis of the core meanings and construction of the final analytical areas, articulating theoretical and emerging dimensions.
In the analytical process, excerpts from participants’ statements that expressed relevant meanings related to their experiences in the theater group were considered as units of discourse. The complete narratives of the interviews were considered as units of context, allowing each unit of discourse to be interpreted in light of the overall experience reported by the participants.
The categorization combined inductive and deductive approaches, facilitating a dialogue between theoretical frameworks (art, empathy, humanization) and the meanings emerging from the field. The final categories were personal transformations; development of relational skills; professional impacts; belonging and support networks.
Ethical consideration
The study fully complied with the ethical guidelines established by Resolution No. 466/2012 of the National Health Council, which regulates research involving human subjects. All participants signed the Informed Consent Form (ICF), ensuring respect for the principles of autonomy, confidentiality, anonymity, and the freedom to withdraw at any time without penalty. To preserve the confidentiality of the statements, participants were identified by alphanumeric codes consisting of the letter I (for interviewee), followed by a sequential number according to the order of the interviews (I1, I2, I3...). The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Professor Edson Antônio Velano University (UNIFENAS) and duly registered in the CEP/CONEP System (opinion No. 7,122,997). During the interviews, in situations of emotional distress or vulnerability, participants were offered support and the option to take a break, safeguarding their well-being.
The methodological steps are summarized in Frame 1.
Results and discussion
The interpretation of the narratives was conducted in a reflective and rigorous manner, in line with phenomenological assumptions and the criteria for qualitative reliability proposed by Lincoln and Guba19. The analytical process sought to respect the uniqueness of the experiences and, at the same time, capture shared meanings through thematic categorization inspired by Bardin24. The researcher’s reflexivity, supported by the field diary and epoché, was central to ensuring coherence between the reported experiences and the interpretations presented below.
The analysis of the 33 interviews revealed four interconnected thematic areas: personal transformations, development of relational skills, professional impacts, and belonging and support networks. To better visualize the analytical process, Frame 2 summarizes the four areas emerging from the content analysis, along with their intermediate categories and representative examples of participant statements.
The 33 narratives included students and alumni from different periods of the program, genders, and roles within the group—ranging from stage and music to black light and backstage—reflecting the diversity of the collective and the richness of the formative roles experienced in the Show Medicina.
Theme 1 – Personal transformations
The theatrical experience was described as a process of self-discovery and expressive liberation. For many, the Show Medicina represented a space for identity reconstruction and subjective empowerment in the face of the rigidity of medical training. The stage and rehearsals functioned as a “safe laboratory,” where mistakes were not punished but were part of the creative learning process—a view that aligns with Spolin11, for whom theatrical play unlocks expressiveness and reactivates spontaneity, allowing the individual to move from self-censorship to authentic creation.
Along this area, two intermediate categories became evident: overcoming shyness; and emotional growth and symbolic self-construction.
The first—overcoming shyness—appears in the accounts of students who began to experiment with safer ways of communicating and presenting themselves to others:
At first, I was terrified of performing on stage, but over time, the Show taught me how to face the audience. (I1)
I was even afraid to ask questions in class. On the Show, I gradually gained courage without even realizing it. (I4)
Despite my shyness, I managed to take that first small step toward putting myself out there. (I23)
Even without acting much, just being involved in the rehearsals made it easier for me to speak and express myself. (I27)
These statements highlight the transition from shyness to presence, supported by trust in the group. Rogers25 observes that personal growth occurs in environments of acceptance and empathy, in which the individual feels recognized and empowered to express themselves. This welcoming environment also echoes Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, in which learning occurs through interaction with others26. The Show Medicina thus emerged as one such zone, where the body, language, and social interaction become instruments of transformation.
The second aspect—emotional growth and the symbolic construction of the self—pertains to the elaboration of internal experiences through theatrical creation. The creation of characters and scripts served as a means of dealing with emotions and conflicts, in line with Jennings’s drama therapy27 —which conceives of theater as a space for the symbolic reconstruction of experience—and with Moreno’s psychodrama12 —in which the scene serves to reorganize internal emotions and roles.
Each character we brought to life revealed a little bit of who we were. (I8)
The Show helped me cope better with losses and frustrations, even offstage. (I10)
Embodying different lives on stage created space for me to deal with feelings I didn’t even know were there. (I27)
The following quote sums up this transformation:
I began to understand that every person carries a huge emotional background. That changed the way I see things. Today I work in underserved communities, and I know I can’t ask a patient to buy expensive medication without understanding their reality. The Show made me see that. But I also went through an identity crisis when I graduated, because I had embraced the medical persona so fully that I needed therapy to rediscover who I was. (I26)
This statement highlights theater as a space for self-reconstruction and the expansion of social consciousness10. By taking on diverse roles, the students learned to understand others and themselves in a more complex way, experiencing a process of symbolic self-formation26. The stage became a space for experimentation and authenticity, reconciling emotion and reason, body and language—dimensions that are often dissociated in medical education.
Area 2 – Development of interpersonal skills
Empathy, active listening, adaptive communication, and collaboration emerged as central learning outcomes. The theatrical experience broadened the students’ perspective on others and their ability to perceive different realities. Within this area, two intermediate categories stand out: the expansion of empathy and active listening; and adaptive communication and improvisation.
Regarding the expansion of empathy and active listening, the following statements stand out:
In the Show, I learned that everyone has a story and that you must listen without judgment. (I5)
When creating a character, I had to understand their motivations. That helped me better understand real people. (I12)
You build a character to speak the patient’s language. (I24)
It’s important to know how to listen, to perceive what the other person is feeling, even without speaking. Theater gave me that. (I25)
The exercise of playing different roles fostered a kind of “trained empathy,” similar to Moreno’s12 active empathy—which involves experiencing another person’s perspective—and to Jennings’s27 proposal, for whom dramatization is a field for ethical learning about otherness. As Gularte et al.28 point out, artistic activities in healthcare can enhance future physicians’ ethical listening skills, fostering a more sensitive presence during clinical encounters. This is a process of sensitively understanding others, which goes beyond acting techniques and translates into a dialogical approach in everyday life. At the same time, meta-analyses have pointed to a decline in empathy throughout medical school, especially during clinical years, which makes formative experiences such as this one even more relevant8.
The transfer of this learning to clinical practice is clear in the following testimonial:
The Show taught me to speak the patient’s language. At SAMU, I realize that when we engage with the patient’s story and build a connection, everything changes. Many colleagues can’t do this because they lack the listening skills that theater teaches. (I17)
The literature corroborates this relationship between artistic practices and clinical empathy29, noting that expressive activities mitigate the decline in empathy observed during medical school8. However, more cautious interpretations have also emerged:
I don’t know which comes first—whether it’s the Show or one’s personality… those who go to the Show already have that within them. (I26)
It helps, but not much, because I already considered myself empathetic. (I30)
Adaptive communication and improvisation, on the other hand, feature prominently in statements of language adjustments and handling unexpected situations both on and off stage:
Improvising on stage helped me communicate better in job interviews. (I7)
At the hospital, every patient understands things differently. Theater taught me to adapt my language without losing the meaning. (I15)
When treating patients, I observe their expressions and improvise if I realize they haven’t understood. (I23)
You need to be attentive to the other person’s reactions and adjust what you say on the spot. Theater trains you to do this all the time. (I25)
These experiences align with what Spolin11 advocated—improvisation as a sensitive and responsive learning tool—and find resonance in clinical practice through the person-centered interview30, in which dialogue is a co-creation of meaning. In terms of teamwork and professional interaction, Sawyer31 describes improvisation as a skill of creative collaboration, in which each encounter is constructed in real time between the participants.
These statements also indicate that the impact of theater is relational and nonlinear: rather than “creating” skills from scratch, it enhances dispositions that are already present, making them conscious and transferable to healthcare. From a Vygotskian perspective, this involves learning situated in the zones of encounter—between the self and the other, the lived and the imagined—in which communicative adaptation becomes part of care26.
Taken together, the expansion of empathy and active listening, along with adaptive communication and improvisation, demonstrate that the Show Medicina functioned as systematic training in presence, listening, and the translation of meanings. The theatrical experience served as a laboratory for transforming attention, language, and collaboration into clinical competencies, strengthening modes of relationship that are more sensitive, responsive, and ethically oriented toward care.
Area 3 – Professional impacts
The theater group was perceived as a microcosm of the healthcare field—a space where cooperation, conflict, and hierarchy coexist. This coexistence required participants to develop ethical and relational skills to navigate power, difference, and the pressure to produce results. Within this area, two intermediate categories stand out: learning about hierarchy and leadership; and resilience and group dynamics.
Regarding learning about hierarchy and leadership, the converging statements point to negotiation, self-positioning, and a critical analysis of authority:
I learned to respect others without losing myself. (I3)
Sometimes, leadership was democratic; at other times, authoritarian. I learned to negotiate, to choose my battles. When I arrived at the residency, I realized how formative that experience had been. (I23)
Respecting hierarchies even when I disagreed became a distinguishing factor in the job market. (I26)
Disagreements also emerged, reflecting resistance to abuse:
I respected authority when I wanted to… but if I saw that it was an abuse of power, I didn’t respect it. (I20)
Theater can function as a field for political experimentation, where the dramatization of oppression and resistance fosters the recognition and questioning of power10. This critical awareness is particularly relevant in medical education, which remains permeated by micro-powers and authoritarianism32. The findings also relate to the formation of professional identity as a longitudinal and relational process33 and to the parallel curriculum, understood as the set of formative experiences that occur outside formal curricular activities. This dimension is closely related to Hafferty’s concept of the hidden curriculum32, which refers to the values, norms, and implicit messages conveyed through institutional culture that influence attitudes toward authority, power, and professional relationships. In the Show Medicina, these dynamics were experienced in a symbolic and reflective manner, allowing students to exercise leadership styles that were more dialogic and supportive.
Regarding resilience and group dynamics, the converging statements highlight conflict management, cooperation under pressure, and a focus on the common goal:
There were arguments, conflicts, people who didn’t get along, but the play had to go on. (I14)
Everyone has their own way of doing things, and we need to learn to get along. (I21)
I learned that in any group there will be conflict, but you need to focus on the bigger goal. (I31)
This set of statements highlights relational resilience12 —the ability to reorganize bonds under stress and transform conflict into growth—and a pedagogy of coexistence27, a process of learning from one another that deepens when art anticipates and addresses challenges typical of healthcare work.
In medical practice, dealing with multidisciplinary teams and institutional environments requires precisely these skills; the artistic experience fosters their lived experience and reframing even during training34. In this vein, ethical care arises from mutual recognition and the construction of shared meaning9.
Even the most uncomfortable conflicts were experienced as learning opportunities:
I disagree with what the group considers helping a friend… for me, helping means covering for someone else when they’re not feeling well, not demanding that they go to work when they’re sick. (I16)
These tensions reveal that ethical learning also occurs through disagreement.
In summary, Show Medicina can be understood as a community of practice35, where critical analysis of power, dialogic leadership, and resilient cooperation are practiced. Both on stage and behind the scenes, the show served as a laboratory for transferring these skills to professional life, balancing sensitivity, responsibility, and critical thinking.
Area 4 – Belonging and support networks
Show Medicina also stood out as a space for welcome and emotional support. The group fostered a sense of belonging, recognized as essential for well-being and persistence in medical training. Within this area, two intermediate categories are made explicit: sense of belonging; and the building of professional support networks.
Regarding the sense of belonging, the converging statements reveal a sense of acceptance and rootedness in the group:
It was at the Show that I found my group. I felt like I was part of something for the first time. (I2)
The first meeting at the Show, holding the string together, gave me the sense of belonging I needed. (I27)
My classmates from that year are still my support today. (I28)
The powerful statement below sums up this experience:
I wouldn’t have stayed in Belo Horizonte if it weren’t for the Show. I hated the city, but the Show kept me there. I liked medicine, but the Show allowed me to graduate. (I9)
The sense of belonging described goes beyond friendship: it is a formative experience. Rogers25 emphasizes that human growth requires bonds of acceptance and trust. Ayres9 adds to this by understanding care as a relationship of mutual recognition, in which one learns to care by being cared for. The group, therefore, functioned as a pedagogical space for empathy and shared responsibility.
These experiences suggest that the sense of belonging reported goes beyond friendship and constitutes a formative experience. Rogers25 emphasizes that human growth requires bonds of acceptance and trust. From an anthropological perspective, Turner36 describes communitas as a state of cohesion and equality experienced in ritual contexts—a liminal experience that the Show Medicina has brought to life by dissolving hierarchies and integrating generations. Tronto37 expands on this interpretation by proposing the ethics of care as a political practice: the group’s affective networks resist the impersonal logic of medical training, forming microcommunities of solidarity and resistance.
In the construction of professional support networks, the accounts indicate that these bonds continue beyond graduation:
To this day, much of what I’ve achieved has come from people I met on the Show. (I18)
The connection we create there goes beyond the stage; it becomes a lifelong partnership. (I29)
The contacts I made at the Show opened doors to internships and job opportunities. (I4)
These experiences characterize the Show Medicina as a community of practice35, where knowledge and values circulate among freshmen, upperclassmen, and alumni. In Vygotskian terms, the group’s interactions created “zones of collaboration” that extended beyond the theatrical space, transforming into networks of trust that sustain professional practice26.
Dissonances also arose, highlighting tensions regarding a sense of belonging:
I was used as a tool to get people to do things… that was negative. (I20)
These counterpoints show that a sense of belonging is not homogeneous: strong bonds can coexist with conflicts and the renegotiation of roles. Even so, most recognized the group as a support network that endures over time.
In general terms, Show Medicina transcends the aesthetic dimension and establishes itself as a space for collective care: a space where feeling, learning, and belonging intertwine, sustaining academic and professional trajectories through bonds of recognition, solidarity, and collaboration.
It can therefore be concluded that the four educational areas—personal transformations, development of interpersonal skills, professional impacts, and a sense of belonging and support networks—reveal that Show Medicina functions simultaneously as a space for expression, social interaction, learning, and subjective support. By uniting aesthetics and emotion, theater proved to be an educational methodology capable of integrating dimensions that are often dissociated in medical education: emotion and reason, body and language, subjectivity and technique, individuality and collectivity.
On a personal level, the stage served as a symbolic space for self-reconstruction. Creative freedom, improvisation, and theatrical play fostered processes of self-knowledge and emotional maturation, as suggested by Spolin11, Jennings27, and Rogers25. These experiences enhanced expressiveness, confidence, and autonomy—fundamental conditions for the ethical practice of care.
In interpersonal relationships, theatrical practice facilitated the development of empathy and adaptive communication. The act of portraying others, listening to them, and co-creating the scene was described as training in presence and active listening, in line with Moreno12 and the Calgary–Cambridge model30. These skills, traditionally neglected in formal curricula, emerged as central learning outcomes for a more humanized medicine.
In the professional context, the theater group served as a space for rehearsing hierarchical relationships and the ethical challenges of everyday medical practice. The tensions experienced during the creative process—disagreements, leadership dynamics, and negotiations—became opportunities to learn about power, dialogue, and coexistence. In line with Boal10 and Hafferty32, the Show Medicina functioned as a parallel curriculum, where values, attitudes, and ways of being are learned through shared practice and critical reflection. The theatrical experience thus fostered a relational ethic grounded in empathy and shared responsibility.
Finally, the development of a sense of belonging and support networks revealed that art also educates through affection. Experiences of communitas36 and mutual care35,37 reinforced the importance of the collective dimensions of education. The group functioned as a community of practice35, in which knowledge circulates across generations and is sustained by bonds of recognition and solidarity. A sense of belonging, in this context, is more than mere coexistence: it is the foundation of mental health, continuity, and meaning.
Taken together, the results indicate that Show Medicina transcends the role of an extracurricular activity and establishes itself as an aesthetic-affective space for holistic training. By bringing together creation, reflection, and care, theater enables future physicians to experience a pedagogy of sensitivity—where one learns to observe, listen, and act in relation to others. It is, therefore, a fertile ground for training professionals capable of combining technical competence with humanity, reaffirming art as a legitimate avenue for knowledge production and transformation in contemporary medical education.
Final considerations
This study sought to understand the contributions of theatrical experience, within the context of the university group Show Medicina, to medical education. The analysis of narratives from students and alumni revealed that theater functions as an aesthetic-affective educational methodology, capable of engaging subjective, relational, and professional dimensions rarely addressed by traditional curricula.
The four identified educational areas—personal transformations, development of relational skills, professional impacts, and a sense of belonging—proved to be deeply interconnected. Overcoming expressive barriers and strengthening autonomy fostered greater empathy, active listening, and improvisational communication, which, in turn, supported ethical and collaborative learning in the practice of medicine. The sense of belonging and the support networks formed within the group proved decisive for the students’ retention and well-being in the program, reaffirming the role of theater as a space for care and identity formation.
By bringing together emotion, the body, and critical reflection, the Show Medicina emerged as a hybrid educational space—at once artistic, educational, and relational—that fosters the integration of knowledge and sensitivity. This experience illustrates the potential of artistic practices in medical education, not only as tools for humanization but also as paths to self-knowledge and the ethical transformation of individuals.
Like all qualitative research, this study has limitations, primarily related to the absence of double coding and collective feedback of the results to the participants. Nevertheless, the consistency of the narratives, theoretical saturation, and the researcher’s reflective account give interpretive robustness to the material.
The findings reinforce the need to recognize the arts as legitimate components of medical education, inspiring curricular strategies that promote sensitive listening, group work, and holistic care. Theater—by uniting aesthetics and empathy—reaffirms its power as a mediator between science and humanity, contributing to the training of professionals who are more aware of themselves, others, and the world they inhabit.
In addition to pointing paths toward a more sensitive education, the results suggest the importance of institutional policies that embrace artistic practices as an integral part of professional development. Formal recognition of university groups such as Show Medicina can foster more collaborative and inclusive learning environments, encouraging ethical, communicative, and reflective attitudes that directly impact patient care. Incorporating theater and other expressive languages into medical education does not merely mean adding complementary activities but rather reestablishing the very logic of training: shifting the focus from technical performance to shared experience, where feeling and thinking go hand in hand. In this sense, theater emerges as a paradigm of a pedagogy of encounter—aesthetic, affective, and political—that is indispensable to the construction of a truly humane medicine.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the students and alumni who participated in this study and voluntarily shared their experiences.
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Silveira AC, Moura EP. Contributions of theatrical activities to medical education from the perspective of students and alumni: a qualitative study. Interface (Botucatu). 2026; 30: e260771 https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.260771
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Funding
This research did not receive funding from public, private, or nonprofit funding agencies.
Data Availability
The data cannot be made publicly available.
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Edited by
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Editor
Elizabeth Maria Freire de Araujo Lima https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0590-620X
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Associated editor
Flavia Liberman https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8563-5993
