Innovation in the academic and pedagogical components

The operationalisation of soft skills in the development of a medical master thesis

Abstract

In today’s world, doctors must keep up to date with new advances in medicine to make the best decisions for their patients. Integrate scientific research in medical schools is the best way to familiarize future doctors in scientific practice. For this reason, in Europe, the reformulation of the medicine course through the Bologna Process forced to rethink the scientific training as part of
the whole curriculum. This is expressed at the end of the course in the course unit «Dissertation/Monograph», which constitutes a scientific research work leading to the Master degree in Medicine. This paper aimed to present the academic and pedagogical binomial designed with the implementation of this course unit as a promoter of a close link between research and learning. The educational strategy adopted in this UC introduced a new way of teaching, learning and assessment and, at the same time, promote scientific thinking of future doctors, through the development of core competencies and related soft skills. The results reported academic and pedagogical structure of this course, organization, students training, academic success and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
 within this approach, it has emerged a model based on the most current principles of medical
education with recognized success in established objectives, in particular by the number of published scientific papers. The model described in this study should be a tool to implement in other pedagogical contexts and in other higher education institutions.