Educational and evaluation strategies in the training of physician specialists

Background: Teaching strategies have been defined as procedures, means or resources that teachers used to promote meaningful learning.

Aim: Identify teaching strategies and evaluation used by the professor with residents in tertiary hospitals health care.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted with full, associate and assistant professors of various medical specialties. A questionnaire was applied to evaluate the strategies used by professors to teach and evaluate students.

Results: We included a sample of 90 professors in 35 medical specialties. The most frequent teaching activities were: organizing students to develop presentations on specific subjects, followed by asking questions on previously reviewed subjects, In terms of the strategies employed, the most frequent "always" option was applied to case analyses. The most frequent methods used for the evaluation of theoretical knowledge were: participation in class, topic presentation and exams.

Conclusions: Teaching activities were primarily based on the presentation of specific topics by the residents. The most commonly used educational strategies were clinical case analyses followed by problem-based learning and the use of illustrations. Evaluation of the residents' performance in theory knowledge, hinged on class participation, presentation of assigned topics and exams.