Percepção de estudantes de Medicina Veterinária sobre sua formação acadêmica em Saúde Pública

Abstract

Veterinarians play an important role in many situations related to the health of humans. However, studies have reported that a considerable proportion of undergraduate students of Veterinary Medicine are not really interested in themes directly associated to public health. Therefore, a descriptive study was realized, in the first semester of 2020, to understand how undergraduate students at the Veterinary Faculty from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, perceive their undergraduate education in public health and how they are encouraged to reflect and work, in the future, as a public health professional. From 248 students contacted, 39 answered an online questionnaire composed by 20 closed-ended and 4 open-ended questions. Main results observed were that students (i) are more interested in activities and courses related to companion animal medicine, (ii) perceive that little amount of courses adequately link their subjects with public health, and (iii) see public health as a relevant field of their education and would consider working with it after graduation. Although these results show a behaviour that was already observed in some studies performed in Brazil and United States, reinforcing that often veterinary curriculum does not adequately prepares graduates in many aspects of veterinary public health, students are still opened to opportunities to deal with different public health challenges. It is expected that these results might contribute, especially at local level, to the discussion of the current scenario and the improvement of veterinary student’s education.