Teaching patient safety in the medical undergraduate program at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the Educational Project of the undergraduate medical course to verify what is taught regarding Patient Safety and to enable reflections on the educational practice. METHODS: A descriptive study, using document research as strategy. The document of investigation was the Educational Project of the medical course, in 2006, at the Escola Paulista de Medicina of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo. The theoretical framework adopted was the Multi-Professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide of the World Health Organization, which led to the preparation of a list with 153 tracking terms. RESULTS: We identified 65 syllabus units in the Educational Project of the course, in which 40 (61.5%) addressed topics related to Patient Safety. Themes on the topic “Infection prevention and control” were found in 19 (47.5%) units and teaching of “Interaction with patients and caregivers” in 12 (32.5%); however content related to “Learning from errors to prevent harm” were not found. None of the framework topics had their proposed themes entirely taught during the period of education of the future physicians. CONCLUSION: Patient safety is taught in a fragmented manner, which values clinical skills such as the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, post-treatment, surgical procedures, and follow-up. Since it is a recent movement, the teaching of patient safety confronts informative proposals based on traditional structures centered on subjects and on specific education, and it is still poorly valued.