Conflicts between teachers and students when initiating medical training: study trough critical incidents

Abstract

Introduction: The conflicts are inherent situations in the relationships; in the interaction between teachers and students, conflicts happen by different reasons. In the medical training occur since first years. 

Objective: To report the conflicts reasons between teachers and students in the first years of medical training in a public medical school from the student’s perspective.

Method: The conceptual referent was the conflicts from Galtung´s about three elements that interact when a conflict occurs: contradiction, attitude and behavior. This investigation reports that contradiction is the source of conflictive behavior and attitude. This was a qualitative approach by critical incidents analysis; the incidents were collected with a format for the students of the 2016 class.
The analysis of 160 critical incidents was done through the modified grounded theory. 

Results: Eight categories were defined that originated the conflicts: negative attitude, low efficiency and scarce teacher´s commitment or unfair evaluation. This matches with previous studies during the clinical clerkships and in others disciplinary areas.

Conclusions: According to student’s testimonials, the conflict occurs mainly because of the teachers’ poor socioaffective competences. These findings allow us to know how students initiate the construction of their professional identity when interacting with teachers.