Laboratório de Tecnologia Educacional BIBLIOTECA DIGITAL               DE CIÊNCIAS

Biochemistry is a basic subject in health courses. These students should be able to work in an environment where organic reactions knowledge is essential to understand the health-disease dialectic. It is especially important in nursing, which requires the ability to research, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation of care process. Because of this, biochemistry should seek to link content to professional activity, with emphasis on pathophysiology, without ignoring its own objectives. Once the first option makes teaching the subject more attractive and interesting, on the other hand a solid basic training would enable students to solve unexpected situations, adapting to new circumstances. In this context, we attempted to describe the UFBA’s nursing students views about the importance of discipline for the future profession and to verify the perception of the actual yield on the discipline and ability to relate concepts of biochemistry pathophysiology. Students’ interest was divided between metabolism understanding and its disorders, contributing for the diseases diagnosis. Overall, students showed good subject performance. Thus, it became impossible to think biochemistry devoid of pathophysiology. This view is claimed by the students themselves, encouraging performance in the course.