Liver transplantation as a multidisciplinary strategy for undergraduate education

Abstract

The program of liver transplantation can contribute in an excellent manner to undergraduate education on a daily basis, especially in the form of scientific initiation with studies of experimental investigation in the laboratory or as formal monitoring in experimental or clinical investigation. In the latter modality, the student helps his tutoring professor in activities more related to the ward and to the Surgical Center, with studies on the clinical follow-up of patients, or with case studies in both prospective and retrospective investigations. It is the task of the adviser to attribute balanced activities whose time of execution will not interfere with formal graduation hours. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the student to structure his free time in order to devote part of it to the exercise of scientific activity. On this basis, the medical student will have the opportunity to experience the most varied facets of transplantation, acquiring the necessary systemic view of the procedure as his knowledge expands. The importance of liver transplant is exactly this, i.e., to obtain a complete idea of the whole with daily contact along time starting from the complex parts that constitute the procedure, exposes the student to diverse clinical situations rarely encountered together in other specialties, permitting him to participate in situations and discussions that are not often addressed during the medical course.