Background The prevalence of mental health problems among medical students have significant proportions worldwide. The spirit of time ( germ. Zeitgeist) is to “Act” in favor of health promotion.
Methods Conception of a PDP-Framework in a Brazilian Medical School based on medical students’ needs and curriculum reform. PDP definition and model were based on QAA Guidance Document (2009). The PDP-Framework received approval from the rector of the University, and was endorsed by the students’ representations. PDP-Framework were included in the Course Pedagogic Project and shared with academic community. The implementation of the PDP started in the first-semester of the medical program in 2018.
Results The main issues of the medical students were lack of time for extra-curricular activities, lack of mental health care and educational support. Based on these results we performed a curricular reform that reduced the hours of curricular activities in 30% and conceived the PDP-Framework. Our model was to embedded PDP into mainstream curriculum as a subject discipline one hour per week in tutorial groups of ten students, facilitated by two psychologists and one doctor specialist in all years of the medical program. We defined two main competences that foresee transitional skills, self-regulation, self-care, professionalism, resilience and personal, educational and career planning. Learning outcomes were defined for each semester. The PDP privileges active methods of learning based on the process of reflection and transformation of reality. Assessment of student performance includes both formative and summative manner with self-perception questionnaires, reflective writing, ePortfolio, and peer and teacher feedback. The PDP evaluation will be based on Kirkpatrick’s Model.
Conclusions Evidence on interventions in educational environment for the promotion of medical students’ mental health is limited and the quality of the studies is generally low. Partial results of a national survey on support models for medical students in Brazil point to three mains models: psychopedagogical, mental health care and mentoring, optional and parallel to curriculum. The PDP-Model embebbed into mainstream curriculum in all years of the course seems to bring a new concept of mental-health care and educational support for medical students in Brazil.