Dados do Trabalho

Título

THE ROLE OF INTEREST GROUPS IN SLEEP MEDICINE EDUCATION: EXPERIENCE REPORT AT A THE SANTA CASA DE SÃO PAULO SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Introdução

Sleep medicine classes are deficient and insufficient during undergraduate medical education. This problem has led medical students to create a Sleep Medicine Interest Group (Liga de Medicina do Sono) – an academical organization for teaching purposes administered by the undergraduate students themselves.

Objetivo

To describe the establishment of a sleep medicine interest group, as well as to evaluate the results of its first edition on the knowledge about sleep medicine among undergraduate medical students.

Métodos

The interest group comprised 15 lectures on different topics of interest to Sleep Medicine. Classes were taken biweekly, and consisted of lectures by invited professors, presentation of clinical cases, and discussion with the students. Only medical undergraduate students from this Medical School were considered eligible for this study. By the end course the attendees (attendance rate >75%) were invited to fill out a questionnaire including an objective assessment of general sleep medicine knowledge (15 multiple choice questions). Their final score was compared with a sample of non-attendees using a Student’s t tests with Welch’s correction and the significant threshold was set at p<0.05.

Resultados

The course interest group had more than 150 enrolled students, with an average of 70 students per class. The questionnaire was filled out by 32 participants, of which 18 were attendees and 14 were non-attendees. Nine participants (28.1%) were 1st or 2nd graders, 15 (46.9%) were 3rd or 4th graders and eight (25.0%) were 5th or 6th graders. Most of the sample (n=21; 65.6%) were male and did not have previous experiences with Sleep Medicine (n=19; 59,4%). The average result on the final exam was significantly higher among the attendees (6.1±1.2) in comparison with non-attendees (4.9±1.3 - p=0.015).

Conclusões

The results show that an interest group is a feasible source of information to undergraduate medical students, being useful to supply the educational deficit in sleep medicine education. These initiatives are simple to implement as an alternative to the formal curriculum, and it is also an excellent personal experience for students who have a role on the board. By sharing this experience, we encourage the other initiatives like this one to be created in other medical school, broadening the access of undergraduate medical students to sleep medicine knowledge.

Palavras -chave

Interests Groups; Sleep; Sleep Medicine; Students; Medical Education