Comparative study between the forensic medicine course programs offered by Costa Rican universities

Abstract

Introduction: There are university curricular and extracurricular factors that can affect the specialization interests of medical students in a certain specialty, it is proposed that curriculum can help increase awareness and understanding, and reduce stigma in relation to typically deserted medical specialties.

Objective: Compare the curriculum of the undergraduate course in forensic medicine and characteristics in medical schools to identify factors associated with the choice of this specialty by their graduates, which are susceptible to teaching intervention.

Method: Document analysis was carried out as a qualitative research method, of the forensic medicine course programs of five Costa Rican universities. Extracurricular and curricular aspects of the courses were considered.

The variables were categorized by university and a descriptive analysis of the results was carried out.

Results: The thematic areas of the contents and the evaluation methodology are similar. Not all programs establish course requirements and corequisites and when they are included, they are different, the number of hours per week and the number of weeks of the courses is not always the same, private university courses are singleteacher and most of them do not include practices or clerkships. Due to the particularities of each university,

each one presents different challenges for its teachers, the majority of private universities related to the inclusion of practices or clerkships, which is not a solution in itself, as it requires adequate preparation.

Conclusions: The University of Costa Rica has the most complete forensic medicine curriculum in the sense that it includes, in addition to a theoretical component, variety of practices or clerkships (in clinical forensic medicine and forensic pathology) and therefore promotes a better understanding of the work of the specialist forensic doctor.

However, there are factors susceptible to teaching intervention in all universities.