Abstract: This paper investigates aspects of psychic suffering among medical students. This population has been the subject of study in Brazil and the world, but it is still insufficiently addressed at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). The psychological aspects that permeate the medical training process have gained visibility and have been studied and debated in several countries because of the peculiarities that surround their journey. The medical students experience a competitive and demanding environment, among a conjunction of factors, favorable to the installation of psychic suffering. In addition to the external elements, the common biopsychosocial transformations in the transition phase in which the university student is usually found can contribute to the vulnerability framework. Still in the process of selection for university entrance, the student is already inserted in an extremely competitive and stressful environment. In order to better understand the difficulties involved in obtaining a spot in a university, it is important to know how the origin of higher education originated and the difficulties to establish it in this country, whose historical survey will be reported in this work. This work will be based on the phenomenological-existential ontology of Heidegger, making an intimate relation between his thought and the psychic suffering that goes through the process of becoming a doctor. The research will be of qualitative nature and the research method under study will be the phenomenological one.