The purpose of this work is to provide elements to understand, in a broad way, the violence within medical training, since most of the work on the subject focuses on its consequences: for example, the physical and psychological conditions of violent acts in the medical training. The article begins with the concept of violence proposed by Galtung, that points out direct violence, structural violence and cultural violence. Then, it describes the hegemonic medical model as a sculptor of medical culture and its effect on medical practice and medical education. Afterwards, it describes the medical habitus and the hidden curriculum, two elements of the medical culture. The first one refers to how the medical personnel justifies the use of violence, the second one refers
to what is taught about the structure, organization and function of the health institutions. Then, the article reviews the characteristics of the health institutions as spaces where an organized medical practice is crystallized in a rigid, hierarchical and vertical manner. We then focus on the worker/student conflict. These conditions are necessary for the appearance of direct violence in the medical training.
Key words: Cultural violence; structural violence; direct violence; medical training; hegemonic medical model.
