Medical student perspectives on palliative care

Abstract

Objective: To understand the view of medical students about palliative care. Review bibliographic: The way in which the medical student deals with death is linked to several factors in an integral way, according to the experiences lived by each individual throughout his life. In addition, throughout their workday, the process of illness and death is an inevitable factor for all patients, the ability to recognize it as natural becomes essential for the professional. This lack of theoretical approach on the subject makes it impossible for medical students to manage correctly, both cognitively and emotionally, the patient who is in the final moments of his life. Therefore, the introduction of the topic throughout the course allows medicine to be individualized to each patient according to their biopsychosocial model and not just from the perspective of the disease itself. Final considerations: Despite being a widely known need, the necessary change of scenery still does not happen in the academic environment, so medical students mostly do not feel prepared to deal with terminally ill patients.