My thanks to Professor Fernandes e Fernandes, Dean of our faculty, for his kindness in inviting me to briefly present my book in his edition of Newsletter@FML.

This work (Fig. 1) was published by Edições Colibri, dated July 2009, and was publicly presented on the following 14th of October in a session held in the Chancellery of the University of Lisbon, beneath the auspices of and prefaced by the Chancellor, Professor António Sampaio da Nóvoa. The Association for Research and Development of the Faculty of Medicine (AIDFM) sponsored the publication (Copies of the book can be exclusively obtained through the AIDFM).

Figure 1-Cover and credits

Title: Um Projecto em Educação Médica.
Colectânea de reflexões, artigos e outros documentos
(Vol. I)
Author © J. Martins e Silva
Preface António Sampaio da Nóvoa
Publisher Edições Colibri
Date of Publication July 2009
Graphic Design Marta Nogueira
Computer Support António Manuel Freire
ISBN 978-989-20-1349-7 (on line / ebook)
ISBN 978-972-772-915-9
Legal Deposit 295 395/09
Lisbon, July 2009

The book is a collection of 164 texts written before and in 2005 on issues directly and indirectly related to Medical Education. Except for two of the works in co-authorship and three other unpublished one, all of the texts had been published previously by the author. The work includes personal views in the form of essays, communications, interviews, prefaces, speeches, editorials or other forms of opinion whilst president of two scientific societies (Portuguese Society of Medical Education; Portuguese Society of Haemorreology and Microcirculation) and as a teacher, vice-Dean and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL).

The work has been divided into two volumes and seven chapters. Volume I includes chapters I, II and part of III, as well as brief Biographical Note, Presentation and Preface. Volume II contaisn the final part of chapter III and the remaining chapters (IV – VII), ending with a Postface. Chapters I (Science and Culture in a Changing Society) and II (Medical Teaching in Portugal – Historical Aspects) analyse or comment on perspectives and aspects of the contemporary soci-cultural context to which the missions of the medical faculties in Portugal belong. Chapters III (FMUL Curricular Reform Project) and IV (Structural Support for the Curricular Reform), which occupy about half of the whole work, deal with several different facets of the curricular reform carried out in the FMUL between 1994 and 2005, within the scope of the recommendations approved by the government (from 1988 to 1993) for the reform of medical teaching in Portugal. Chapter V (Continuous Medical Training) analyses the situation and proposes measures for continued professional lifetime medical training. Chapter VI deals with relevant events and ceremonies in the life of the FMUL (Homages and Other Academic Interventions). Chapter VII, the final one, points out foreseeable and necessary modifications in relation to the several different phases of medical education in general and the paths to be followed by the FMUL over the coming ten to fifteen years.

The Postface summarises and brings together the main conclusions by the texts included in the light of strategies, prospects and the author’s experience in relation to the major difficulties in bringing about institutional changes, even though they are indisputable impossible to put off for everyone involved. Thus one may conclude that the final results will take longer to happen or will be less than what was foreseen or needed, and in any case they will take through great personal and institutional effort.

The explanation for such a situation might be that which Seneca, a first century Roman philosopher, left us in a short expression: “It is not because things are difficult that we are not bold; it is because we are not bold that things are difficult”.
Whatever the case, what has been achieved through collective, committed and reflected effort represents a step forward in the development and progress of the FMUL. That is the sense of the writings presented.

J. Martins e Silva
Full Professor (retired)
Ex Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (FMUL)
and of the Institute of Biochemistry / Chemical Biopathology
jsilva@fm.ul.pt