Medical education in Brazil has been reconstructed in order to attend demands of the health care model, the implementation of the Unified Health System and to form generalist physicians that are able to provide humanistic and integral health care. The curricular reform, a turning point in medical education in the Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Bahia (FMB-UFBA), has implemented its Ethical-humanistic axis, from the first to the eighth semester of medical school curriculum. Many tools are applied in the teaching of medical ethics and bioethics, including the use of literature. This work aims to report the experience of Ethical-humanistic axis of FMB-UFBA in the use of literature in medical education during the period from 2009 to 2012. Literature can be used as a tool that enables the debate on political and social issues, necessary in medical education and allow the reflection on human suffering and human relations inherent to medical practice.
Medical, education; Medical, ethics; Bioethics; Literature; Teaching; Teaching materials