The time came for another edition of Beyond Med, an event, organised annually by the Pedagogical Council, through the Department of Medical Education and the Student Association of the Faculty of Medicine, which is focused on medical education.
Always addressing different and new approaches to medical education, Beyond Med promotes a gathering of prestigious national and international figures to discuss a wide variety of contents, opening new doors for reflection and presenting paths for future of medical students.
This year’s edition was led by João Cerqueira, Professor, Neurologist and Director of the degree in Medicine of the University of Minho; Peter McCrorie, Professor and Director of the Department of Medical Education of the University of Nicosia Medical School, in the United Kingdom; Luis Portela, Physician and Chairman of Bial; Ronald Harden, Endocrinologist and Professor of Medical Education at the University of Dundee, in the United Kingdom, and Doctor Honoris Causa; João Eurico da Fonseca, Professor, Coordinator of the Introduction to Clinics Subject Area at the FMUL and Director of the Rheumatology Department of the CHLN; Ryan Melo, Vascular Surgery Intern; Cláudia Faria, Neurosurgeon at the Santa Maria Hospital, Professor at the FMUL, and researcher at the iMM in the area of paediatric brain tumours; João Ramos, General Practitioner and guest on the television show “Diga Doutor;” Maria do Céu Rueff, Legal expert, Coordinator of the Medical Law subject at the FMUL, Member of the Ethics Committee of the FMUL/CHLN; Rui Tato Marinho, Director of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology department of the CHLN, Professor at the FMUL, and Member of the Pedagogical Council; António Barbosa, Psychiatrist and Director of the Centre for Bioethics of the FMUL; Catarina Pais Rodrigues, 5th-year student at the FMUC and André Fernandes, Common Year Intern at the Beatriz Ângelo Hospital.

In one of the most awaited moments of the event, considered by students as one of the highlights of the day, as they are the sole voters, Professor João Eurico da Fonseca was awarded the acclaimed João Gomes Pedro Prize, which highlights the merits of one of the Faculty’s academic figures in the area of teaching.
The News@FMUL team wanted to hear the winner’s comment on this award. “Despite the fact that the João Gomes Pedro Prize is awarded individually, I interpreted it as a reward for the work of many teams; one of them is Rheumatology and we’ve been working together for many years and making an effort over the last 10/15 years to develop the teaching of the locomotor system in general, and in particular in rheumatic diseases. I’m absolutely certain that part of the relevance has to do with educational improvements concerning the locomotor system, particularly in Rheumatology, which achieved very significant gains in recent years. Then there was the contribution of the work developed in Introduction to Clinics, of the team of assistants in practical and theoretical-practical lessons, and their engagement in the restructuring of the teaching of Introduction to Clinics. I should also mention the staff at the Institute of Semiotics, who have been greatly involved in the entire educational project; they are highly motivated, and very often exceed themselves when it comes to what is expected from their work; without the collaboration of all the people who work there, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve our educational success. I should note that the Administrative Hubs are based in this Institute and that they also collaborate at all levels of teaching in an absolutely altruistic, impeccable way. Then, also interpreting the positive sign given by this award, I think it is the recognition that feedback works, a teaching system based on trying to understand how things are going every year, and there are several channels for that, our own eyes and the assistants’ eyes. That gives us two levels of internal feedback, the eyes of those who are coordinating and the eyes of those who work with the coordinator, all this can work very well and seamlessly in self-feedback scheme. There is also feedback from the students, which obviously has limits and should be very well filtered. That’s because they don’t always have the capacity, at the time, to realise what should be done to correct things; but if there are many negative signs around a specific issue, they have to be taken into account. No matter how psychologically resistant you are, there’s always something that’s now going well when there are many negative signs. So, they should be appropriately valued and introduced into the educational system. In my view, this long evolution, which requires motivated teams and attentive students, giving feedback, can produce considerable progress. I also believe that, associated with this mechanism and this situation of humility, there is the need to continuously assess those who are coordinating. There should be a constant restructuring of what is being done, nothing lasts forever; even if it works very well for 1, 2, 3 years, by the 4th year it may already be inadequate. We should be aware that things should always be adequate and I identify this as the main justification for this award, i.e., a methodology based on the permanent updating of all the areas related to teaching.
For me, personally, the prize has an additional meaning, which is actually related to where I received it: the João Lobo Antunes Grand Auditorium. Professor João Lobo Antunes, who was President of the Pedagogical Council in the early 1990s, contributed during that period to the first survey conducted with the students. This survey was historical because there were no structured questions, they had to be invented, created; they came up with a template with a decent look to be answered quickly, but mainly there was the need to show the results to the professors and we’ve come a long way from that first survey up to the present day. Nowadays, all the professors are eager to see the feedback, so they can then use it as best as they can, but at the time they weren’t eager at all. So much so that the first survey had to be published as a scientific paper, rather than as an internal report. It was very important to bring about this change in mentality. At that time, I was a student representative at the Pedagogical Council and, by historical coincidence, I had the opportunity to participate, very proactively, in this first survey. In fact, years later I was still using it, copying and pasting the questions to hand them out to my students; the official survey came later, I associate this award with a year-long work and with Professor Lobo Antunes, in particular, for his internal strength that made all this possible.”

One of the novelties of this year’s edition was the possibility of interacting with medical simulators – “Hands on the scene,” which bring students closer to their future medical reality.
The Newsletter team challenged the Pedagogical Council to reflect on this event, tracing the road map of yet another Beyond Med. That will happen in November and Professor Rui Tato Marinho will write on this topic on behalf of the Pedagogical Council.
Stay tuned!
Full programme here
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Joana Sousa

Equipa Editorial