• Diego Teixeira Nascimento, Maria Almeida Dias, Rodrigo de Sousa Mota, Luciana Barberino, Larissa Durães, and Paulo André Jesuino Dos Santos.
• Liga Acadêmica de Medicina Intensiva da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brasil.
• Rev Bras Ter Intensiva. 2008 Dec 1; 20 (4): 355-61.

ObjectivesStudents of Salvador - BA, Brazil were trained in critical care medicine by accomplishing extracurricular internships. This study aims to detect changes in attitude and interest of students who concluded these internships as well as the most frequent activities developed.MethodsDescriptive cross-sectional survey conducted with students who did extracurricular internships in adult intensive care units during the second semester of 2006. A self-administered questionnaire was given using objective questions.ResultsWe evaluated 49 students. Interest in becoming an intensivist was classified as high/very high by 32.7% before internship, after which 61.2% reported increased interest. Before internship, students on a 1 to 5 scale rated the importance of critical care medicine as 4.55 ± 0.70. After internship, 98% felt more confident to refer a patient to the intensive care unit, 95.9% to evaluate with supervision, patients admitted to intensive care units and 89.8% to attend patients in the emergency room. The most common procedures observed were: central venous access (100%), peripheral venous access (91.8%) and orotracheal intubation (91.8%). Topics ranked in terms of interest from 1 to 5 were: systemic inflammatory response syndrome/sepsis (4.82 ± 0.48), shock (4.81 ± 0.44) and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (4.77 ± 0.55).ConclusionsThis study showed that internships in adult intensive care units of Salvador (BA), Brazil provided students with greater assurance to evaluate critical patients, increased their interest to follow an intensivist physician career and allowed contact with the main procedures and topics related to critical care medicine.

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