Introduction:

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, medical education has faced changes in the teaching-learning process.

Objective:

To understand the challenges of remote teaching in medical training during the COVID-19 pandemic at a Federal University in the south of Brazil.

Method:

This is a study with a qualitative approach, whose subjects comprised students from two medical courses at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis campus and Araranguá campus, during 2021. The technique used for data collection was the online focus group, totaling seven meetings. Forty-six students participated. The collected data were investigated through Thematic Content Analysis.

Results:

Deterioration in the relationship between medical students and the community was observed, mainly due to the restricted inclusion of knowledge about the pandemic in the formal curricula of the courses, reduced contact with patients, dissolution of the theoretical-practical element in remote teaching due to the absence of practical activities and the inflexible nature of the formal curriculum. During academic training, there was psychological overload on students due to social distancing and exhaustive theoretical workload.

Conclusions:

The construction of medical knowledge and the provision of care consistent with the population’s needs was affected by COVID-19. It is essential to recognize such a mismatch and the need to establish strategies to solve the problems related to the difficulties encountered by students, based on their learning, in response to the population’s aspirations and the need for adaptations in medical education in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic for the medical education process.

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