“Death With Interruptions” in the teaching of Ethics and Bioethics

Abstract

The curriculum guidelines for undergraduate medical courses recommend that medical training should be humanistic, reflective, and ethical. Furthermore, medical professionals should be able to provide support in the process of death, with the evaluation of active methodologies for the teaching and learning of humanities, ethics, and bioethics a fundamental part of medical courses. The present study evaluates the use of the novel “Death with interruptions” as a teaching tool for ethics and bioethics, addressing individual and collective reflections when dealing with the theme of death. This is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach, analyzing the evaluation of a literary work by medical students from the Escola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública (the Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health). The study concluded that this instrument is recommended for the teaching of humanities, finding that its reading encouraged the development of subjective abilities in students to deal with situations related to death, respecting the principles of bioethics.