Introduction

The current global, and more recently Brazilian, state-of-affairs, indicate that Medicine courses are lacking in disciplines that address the issues of death, grief and communicating bad news. These are themes generally inserted in the context of palliative care, although not exclusively in subjects that instruct future medical professionals beyond technical-scientific knowledge, bearing in mind the need of patients and relatives to be cared for in psychosocial and spiritual terms1. There are known barriers for the application of palliative care methods in Brazil. These include a lack of training in palliative care among health care staff, and specifically in this study, medical professionals.

Objectives

To identify the level of knowledge in Palliative Care among sixth-year medical students at a Medicine school in the state of Goiás, Brazil, understand their view of training in Palliative Care during the undergraduate medical course and, finally, discuss the inclusion of Palliative Care in the medical training offered at their school and throughout Brazil

Method

A questionnaire containing 9 questions was applied to assess the level of knowledge about Palliative Care among sixth-year medical students from a Medicine school in the state of Goiás, Brazil. The study population was formed by 81 individuals, of both sexes, all of whom were at least 18 years of age.

Results

It was found that 73.84% of the interviewees were able to define orthothanasia, 43.07% gave a correct definition of dysthanasia and 58.73% correctly described euthanasia. Nonetheless, 36.92% of the students did not deem themselves fit to deal with terminality, and 74.3% cited a lack of attention given to the theme during undergraduate training.

Conclusion

Although the assessed students knew some principles of palliative are, these are insufficient. The students allege a lack of attention given to the theme, emphasising the need to implement Palliative Care as a mandatory discipline in the Brazilian curriculum.

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