Peer review in medical education: a report of the potentialities and challenges for professional training

Abstract:

Introduction:

The Brazilian National Curriculum Guidelines (NCG) for undergraduate courses in medicine propose teaching and assessment methods in which students can develop criticality in relation to learning needs. In this context, Peer Review (PR) represents a didactic strategy capable of enhancing this process. However, there is still little use of this tool in undergraduate training, and frequent use in scientific congresses and evaluation of journals. This experience report seeks to share the learning and reflections of the systematic implementation of the PR in a curricular component of Public Health in a medical undergraduate course at the Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil.

Experience report:

The discipline in which the activity was created had theoretical and practical activities during the semester. Thus, the reported activity started with posters about student experiences in Primary Health Care being made throughout the semester due to its importance in medical congresses. These posters were evaluated consecutively using the PR instrument previously agreed with the students, which scored structural criteria of the poster as well as its content. The students could be evaluated and act as evaluators, being supervised by professors, which contributed to the development of criticality in the learning process.

Discussion:

Initially, the activity generated strangeness by students because of their lack of familiarity with PR, which was overcome over the discipline. As limitations, we point out the need to deal with subjectivities in the students’ evaluation process, training in feedback and conflict management, in addition to possible technological limitations of some students.

Conclusions:

PR, although a strategy used in other scientific scenarios, has an innovative character in undergraduate courses and can promote the skills expected for a critical and autonomous medical professional, such as familiarity with the practice of feedback and the capacity for critical analysis.

Keywords:
Medical Education; Poster; Peer Review