This study was conducted in a public university with the aim of learning the views, values, and attitudes of medical professors toward end-of-life treatment for patients. The study focused on the concept of social representation (Moscovici) and the qualitative methodology of collective subject discourse analysis, as proposed by Lefèvre & Lefèvre. The subjects' discourses revealed that end-of-life entails extensive suffering for physicians, medical students, and patients. The predominant view of biomedicine is associated with a lack of professional preparedness and absence of more in-depth reflection on death and dying. The subjects appeared not to perceive the relations between what they say about themselves and what they say about their students. Changes in the teaching hospital's institutional life appear necessary in order to mitigate an unperceived legacy involving physicians, patients, and medical students.
Death; Professor doctors; Medical students; Dying process; Values
