Educación médica: la adicción y el cine (Drogas y juego como búsqueda de la felicidad)

Abstract

Originating from diverse backgrounds, medical students have their own cultural understanding and feelings about social diversity. Dealing with human beings, they must be prepared to face the infinity of human behaviors without prejudice.           Our aim was to assess the usefulness of using scenes of commercial movies (“Trainspotting”, “Requiem for a dream”, “Leaving Las Vegas”, “Kids” and “Rounders”) for educational purposes, during an optional one-day course on “Addictions” for 4th and 5th year medical students (Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon.           Following discussions, each theme was approached with student participation and interaction, allowing students to bring out their prior perceptions and misconceptions, and trying to solve case-based medical problems.           The use of scenes from movies was considered to be motivating and useful for promoting and explore a wider vision of addicted’s social and medical problems. They may also trigger some personal changes about the understanding of “what substance/gambling abusers feel inside”.