This article is a product of research work about initiatives of curricular innovation based on the National Curricular Guidelines (DCN) and carried out in State medical schools in the states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. One of these schools is connected with the Programme to Promote Curricular Changes in Medical Education (Promed). In the analysis of the empirical material, three questions - respectively of a methodological, political and historic-cultural and scientific nature - correspond to what we present in this article, namely: the discussion about the innovation concept; the various developments of the analysis of the speeches, that enable us to draw a profile of the current situation of the medical education in the selected institutions, and thus to have a clear picture of the pedagogical perspectives and conceptions in medical education and estimate the knowledge levels of the DCN, from the teachers' and pupils' points of view; and the students' expectations with regard to the training and its connection with the world of work. The methodology selected follows the principles of qualitative research and, for this reason, we used the focal group interview technique. This technique gives us the empirical material that, analyzed theoretically, is presented once more to the actors (teachers, administrators, and students) inserted in practical activities oriented to the curricular innovations.
curricular innovation; medical education; education and health