Editorial Note
FMUL challenges in 2009-2010
It is this philosophy and practice that it is intended to set up and be stimulated by teachers and students. Even, or above all, when this may force us to review or question some pedagogical habits, situations, habits and routines.
From the outset what runs through this philosophy for the new third year is naturally to perfect and correct that which has been identified by teachers and students as less well managed or even been frustrated and frustrating in the first two years of the CMIM.
And throughout the school in the final three years and also in other degrees it will be necessary to reflect on the practical effectiveness of the real reduction of the excessive time spent today on theoretical classes. What is wished for is, for example, a different ratio between contact hours and study time, being close to the ideal ration of one to three, freeing the students for a system of mixed teaching-learning (combining the classic model of theoretical classes with teaching areas based on problems, in a semi-tutorial regime and with greater pedagogical contact with the teachers outside the classroom), as well moving as towards a spiritual enriching and growth on the part of our students, through sport, play activities and aesthetic practices in the school space and the university, in a unique and unrepeatable moment in their lives.
There is certainly a certain utopian element in this, but it is not necessarily impossible or far-off, as is shown by what happens in other faculties.
It will also be necessary to share teaching, learning and assessment experiences with other medical schools in Portugal and abroad, and the privileged relationship we have with Harvard Medical School, in the context of the ongoing cooperation programme is also included in this area and in the wider context of the information programme and translational research, and in the coming academic year it will be an opportunity to be seized.
Because of all this the FMUL has to think seriously about the training and pedagogical refreshing of its teaching staff, where it is also necessary to have the maximum demands for excellence and quality – the same as we wish to demand from our students and of which we are proud when we achieve them. And it should be remembered that the recruiting of teachers is not restricted to the local cloister, enriching the school with contributions coming from other places, whether through visiting professors or those who fill vacant positions.
It is up to all the FMUL governing bodies, and more specifically to the new Department of Medical Education, to obtain real agreement in this important and thorny area, one that is highly sensitive and relevant, namely in the PhD actions that it is urgent to set up with FMUL teachers, regaining the illuminating spirit of the Masters in Medical Education of the nineties, then inspired by Professor Gomes-Pedro.
Talking of post-graduate courses, it is important for this wider area (corresponding to the former Masters and PhDs) to also be governed by standards of excellence and remain up-to-date – in the renewal of areas of choice and supply, in the transparency of the criteria of choice of excellence in teachers and students, in the pedagogical quality and extra value achieved for and by everyone. It is up to the IFA (Advance Training Institute), along with the DEM (Department of Medical Education) and, naturally, the Scientific Council, to propose and achieve levels of high quality in these areas, in each case divulging results and comparisons, without ignoring the promotion and encouraging of PhDs in the classical clinical areas, some of which are urgently in need of young PhD students and teachers.
But, of course, the FMUL is not just the set of its teachers and students.
It is also, above all in cooperation with the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM), a vast set of researchers of remarkable and acknowledged merit and scientific and intellectual prestige that must continue to be received and nurtured within an increasing interconnection and dialogue of mutual stimulation between the Santa Maria University Hospital and the IMM, in the embryo of what will be the University Academic Centre.
And the FMUL also possesses a valuable group of support and administrative staff, a unique heritage that needs to be kept interested, active and aware of the new Technologies and opportunities, fulfilled, in working communication and perfecting their contact with the teachers and students, in a unit that is plural, critical, aware and vigilant, making modern medical teaching its priority and the essential reason for its professional and academic options.
Finally, but no less important, the FMUL lives in a society and in a concrete world, which is that of Portuguese society, hic et nunc.
The FMUL belongs to the University of Lisbon and serves the Portuguese scientific and health care community.
At a time of great uncertainty in these areas it would be good if there were the wisdom necessary to avoid new constraints and financial mishaps in policies of health, teaching and in support for research, restrictions that usually have a high price in the middle and long term.
In these areas also it is important for the FMUL, through its most prestigious and prestige-providing interlocutors, to continue to guarantee intervention and influence in the polis and in the world of health, education and science policies.
Miguel Oliveira da Silva
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