Literature in the education of future scientists: a lesson of Frankenstein

Educators dedicated to higher education in the health area, which, since the beginning of last century until recently, has prioritized the technical-professional character, have been stressing the necessity of educational proposals that can offer an education encompassing a broader approach to human being and its social relations. In this respect, it is of particular interest to examine the education of students who will conduct their activities as future scientists. We focused on this subject to conduct a study about the implementation of a methodology - developed by an academic humanities center - that privileges literature as a source of education. The method was used in the discipline of philosophy, with students in the first year of a biomedical sciences program at a public university in the State of São Paulo. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was the book that was chosen to achieve the goal of establishing a reflection point through which the exclusively technical-professional focus could be widened. The material we analyzed was drawn from accounts made in class and reports of students, in addition to notes from the field notebooks of the course's professor and monitor, which we examined according with a phenomenological hermeneutic analysis. The results we obtained reflected questions and concerns experienced in students' daily routine, pointing to the identification of the following topics: methodology impact; personal and shared reflection; an expanded notion of the concept of science; and an awakening of the individual and social responsibility which the scientist should have. In conclusion, the methodology achieved its goals, and the results should serve as the basis for further research.