[The education of professors of medicine. Comparison of 2 education strategies for teaching information criticism].

Introduction: Educational programmes for professors of medicine are an unusual situation, particularly in relation to the specialization courses. Since 1983, the Center for the Formation of Professors in the Health Area was established at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), and from 1996 other regional centers were established. The absence of educational research as a prominent activity within the activities of the centers has propitiated the ankylosis of the curriculum, the lack of innovation and routine.

Objective: Two educational strategies in the development of the ability for critical reading were compared. One of them of a traditional or habitual form based in the consumption of information; the other one promoting the participation of the student in the elaboration of his knowledge.

Population And Methods: Two groups of professors were formed at random, the control group (CG) exposed to the traditional educational intervention and the experimental group (EG) exposed to the participative educational intervention. The ability for the critical reading of investigation reports was measured with previously validated instrument which includes three indicators: to interpret (i), to judge (j) and to propose (p), as well as the global result (g).

Results: Before the educational interventions both groups were similar in the three indicators. After the interventions the EG increased significantly his punctuations (p < 0.05) in the three indicators, I: 12.5 to 18, j: 11.5 to 18; p: 5 a 12.5; g: 27 to 47. The CG didn't have significative increases. When comparing both groups after the interventions, we found a statistically significative difference in behalf of the EG (p < 0.01). In the measurement done 15 months later, the EG kept the results reached immediately after the educational intervention. The CG obtained results analogous to those registered before the educational intervention, and the difference between both groups was more ostensible.

Conclusions: The transcendency of educational participative strategies is clearly superior to the traditional ones of expositive type. Additionally, the persistence of learning in the ability for critical reading of research reports by the EG enforces the superiority of a form of education that we shall promote at all levels and particularly at the Centers for the Formation of Professors at the IMSS.