Mission

Medicine and Surgery Program of the Universidad del Valle has the mission to train physicians through the generation, transformation, application and dissemination of scientific knowledge, in conjunction with the humanities and social sciences, through a comprehensive education in health and human-centered. As a member of a state university with a vocation for social service, it assumes commitments in the formation of an individual with ethical and citizen competencies that contribute to the construction of a more just, democratic and sustainable society.

Vision

By 2025, the Medicine and Surgery Program of Universidad del Valle will have international accreditation of high quality and will maintain national recognition for its excellence in academic, research and extension processes.

Society, ethics, politics

General Competence: To understand the relationship between society, ethics and politics, recognizing the exercise of power by different actors, which impacts populations in their life process, health, disease, social action, to critically analyze situations and local and global issues, in the context of social justice.

Specific Competencies: 

• To interpret the human being as the convergence of meanings, forms of knowledge/power and diverse representations according to cultures and social and political conditions, which influence diverse forms of discrimination and social exclusion.
• Analyze the relationship between politics and economic systems that affect the living conditions of populations and groups in local and global contexts.
• To critically analyze social and political (biopolitical) problems, bioethical dilemmas, applying argumentative resources on the exercise of citizenship, coexistence, peaceful conflict resolution, peace, interpersonal relations, individual - society - state relations.
• To recognize otherness as a principle of relationship between subjects, society, ecosystems and life.

Life - health - disease - social action process, health promotion, risk prevention and epistemology of medicine.

General Competence: Conceptualize, contextualize and problematize the life-health-disease-social action process, from different perspectives and approaches in order to understand the processes of health promotion and health risk prevention in order to contribute to transform health conditions and determinants, empower individuals and communities and undertake actions to preserve the health of the population and make a more efficient use of resources, according to the best available scientific evidence and in a safe manner for the patient.

Specific Competencies:

• Reflect on the historical process and theoretical trends in health, medicine and public health.
• Identify the biological-ecological-environmental, psychological-social-cultural, socio-economic, ethical-political dimensions of the life process, health, disease and social action in different contexts.
• To encourage critical reflection on the trends and realities of the medical profession.
• To understand the historical contexts of theoretical approaches to health promotion, and their relationship (continuities and ruptures) with health risk and harm prevention approaches.
• Recognize the importance of educational processes, community participation and social mobilization from population and territorial approaches in contexts.
• Participate in the design and implementation of health promotion interventions according to priorities identified in the health sector as well as in other sectors and communities in their practice setting.
• Analyze the social, physical, environmental, behavioral, emotional and biological risks that threaten health in different human groups and in different settings (school, community, neighborhood, work, etc.).
• Recognize the importance of public health surveillance processes for injuries, disability and diseases, risks and environmental exposures in different territories.
• Participate in the design of disease and harm prevention interventions for human health, according to priorities identified in particular contexts and their professional functions.
• Determine the education, behavior modification and early detection actions required by an individual according to the risk characterization.

Patient care

General Competence: Perform individual medical care in ambulatory, home, institutional, emergency and hospital settings at all levels of complexity under the principles of medical professionalism, with communication skills, based on a solid knowledge of biomedical and socio-humanistic sciences, medical semiology, scientific-clinical evidence, epidemiological principles and cost-effectiveness, in order to diagnose and treat the disease, relieve symptoms, contribute to improve the quality of life, facilitate functional recovery and prevent the progression of damage.

Specific Competencies: 

• Apply knowledge of biomedical sciences to understand the normal biology of the human body and the pathophysiology of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and thus understand how protocols and procedures used for health promotion, prevention, diagnosis, therapeutic management and prognosis of diseases affecting humans work.
• Perform the medical act (anamnesis and physical examination) considering the communicative elements that seek to achieve the empathy and trust necessary in the patient-physician relationship and to obtain the biological, psychosocial and spiritual information of the patient at the individual, family and community level in a complete and coherent manner.
• Evaluate the clinical and psychosocial information obtained in a logical and rational manner in order to perform the relevant diagnostic and therapeutic decision making process in the patients in charge.
• Request and interpret paraclinical studies in the patients in charge with criteria of quality, relevance and cost-effectiveness.
• Communicate diagnostic and therapeutic plans to patients, families and caregivers in a manner that fosters patient understanding and empowerment.
• Manage prevalent pathologies in all individual life cycles with criteria of comprehensiveness, ethics, quality, epidemiological relevance, cost-effectiveness and with a patient-centered approach, seeking an adequate level of resolution.
• Detect in a timely manner the need for urgent management of patients in their care, make the initial approach and define the appropriate level of care.
• Perform medical and surgical procedures essential for the initial care of medical emergencies.
• Perform minor surgical procedures on outpatients in their care within the framework of patient safety in accordance with their level of competence, avoiding harm due to imperfection.
• Apply the concept of quaternary prevention in patient care decision making.
• Involve patient safety strategies during the medical act in all care settings.
• Write and present clinical reports to colleagues and other health professionals.

Health systems management and practice

General Competence:Understand health systems from a critical, historical and territorial perspective in the social, economic and political context, in order to interact effectively as part of interprofessional teams that comprehensively manage the health-disease process in the environment where they provide their services.

Specific Competencies:

• Analyze health systems and care models, including free competition, regulated and mixed markets.
• To know the Quality Management System and its evaluation instruments.
• To carry out the processes of notification and epidemiological surveillance of health events (mandatory notification event files, adverse event reports, pharmacovigilance reports, live birth certificates, death certificates) and disease coding.
• Implement patient safety policies and strategies.
• To know elements of labor law and microeconomics in order to work in decent conditions.
• Work with all professions and trades related to the care of people and communities from the establishment of a dialogue of knowledge and the principles of teamwork.
• To understand the fundamental elements of health risk management.

Professionalism

General Competence:Exercise the profession from an intellectual and symbolic capital, committed to ethical principles, with autonomy in decision making, commitment to service to society and capacity for self-regulation.

Specific Competencies: 

• Respond to the health needs of individuals, families and communities under their care, independent of their own interests.
• To act under the individual, social and ethical guidelines of the medical profession and to identify the ethical challenges that this action entails.
• Recognize the limits of their personal and professional actions, developing processes of self-criticism and permanent self-evaluation as mechanisms for the improvement of their professional practice.
• Recognize the importance of self-care as an element to support their professional practice.
• Recognize empathy and compassion as fundamental elements in relationships with patients.
• Have the critical capacity to recognize potential conflicts of interest in their relationship with the different actors involved in health care and to establish their actions autonomously with the primary purpose of seeking the ultimate wellbeing of patients, families and communities.
• Establish collegial relationships in order to maintain the high standards of the medical profession.
• To develop an aesthetic sensibility that allows them to understand the human being in all its integrality.

Knowledge management

General Competence:Apply the principles and methods of research in the generation, understanding and dissemination of knowledge for the resolution of problems at the individual, family and community levels of their daily practice and manage their permanent updating with criteria of efficiency, access and critical interpretation of information.

Specific Competencies: 

• To understand the production of knowledge and knowledge in health as a political, historical and systematic process that includes its generation, transformation and application for decision making, as well as for social transformation and change.
• Appropriate methodologies to collect, process, interpret and disseminate knowledge and quantitative and qualitative information on health-disease situations.
• Disseminate important health information to stakeholders in specific health risk contexts.
• Conduct participatory health situation analysis using health information systems for decision making.
• Recognize strengths and weaknesses in their own knowledge and expertise, in order to define new learning objectives that allow them to initiate self-learning processes and respond to the health problems of individuals, families and communities.
• Critically evaluate the relevance of the scientific evidence in the available databases to make decisions about the health situation of individuals, families and communities.
• To understand the fundamentals of the scientific method and the main study designs in health-disease phenomena in order to participate in research processes in health sciences.

Complete information about the Enrollment and Admission Process for the first semester, enrollment requirements, minimum scores and specific weights can be found on the web page:

http://admisiones.univalle.edu.co

 See Requirements

Professional Profile

The physician and surgeon of the Universidad del Valle is a critical subject based on ethical values and medical professionalism that allows him/her to exercise his/her citizenship with commitment and his/her profession with humanity, with competencies and abilities to:

• To solve the most prevalent health problems at all levels of care, undertaking actions in health promotion, disease prevention and disease care at the individual, family and community levels.
• To understand health systems from a critical, historical and territorial perspective in the social, economic and political context.
• Interact effectively as part of interprofessional teams that comprehensively manage the health-disease process in the environment where they provide their services.
• Exercise the profession from an intellectual and symbolic capital, committed to ethical principles, with autonomy in decision making, commitment to service to society and capacity for self-regulation.
• Apply the principles and methods of research in the generation, understanding and dissemination of knowledge for the resolution of problems at the individual, family and community levels of their daily practice.
• Manage its permanent updating with criteria of efficiency, access and critical interpretation of information.

Occupational Profile

The field of action of the Surgeon of the Universidad del Valle is in the following contexts:

• As a general practitioner in health institutions at different levels of complexity of care where he performs health care to individuals through all stages of the life cycle and exercises his clinical practice in outpatient settings, emergency services, hospitalization, delivery rooms, performing minor surgical procedures and support in intensive care units and surgical and recovery rooms; where he performs actions in disease prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care.
• As a general practitioner in primary level institutions or in organizations directed to the community where he performs individual and collective actions of health promotion and disease prevention, education and community participation processes.
• As a member of core interprofessional health teams.
• As a member of research groups on health issues.
• As coordinator of health programs in primary level institutions.
• As a member of epidemiological surveillance and health situation analysis committees.

Syllabus Medicine and Surgery Program

According to Resolution No. 023-2013 of the Academic Council, the Academic Program of Medicine and Surgery, code 3660, has a duration of 13 semesters (including the Internship year), in daytime and face-to-face mode. It requires a minimum of two hundred and ninety-eight credits (298).See more (Spanish)

*Resolution No. 165-2019 of the Academic Council is currently in the process of approval by the Ministry of Education.

The Academic Program of MEDICINE AND SURGERY, attached to the School of Medicine of the School of Health of the Universidad del Valle, will grant the degree of Physician and Surgeon to students who have passed the requirements defined in Resolution No. 023 of the Academic Council, and completed a total of 298 academic credits.

In order to comply with Law 14 of April 28, 1962, students who complete their studies are required to complete at least one year of mandatory internship as a degree requirement. The degree work requirement is fulfilled with the completion of the internship.