This study was carried out in a medical curriculum in Medellín, Colombia. Its goal was to correlate the meanings about bioethics that emerged in the educational guidance with those produced among students and professors. A methodological triangulation was used, namely: analysis of the curriculum foundation documents; a representative survey to students, and interviews and focal groups. Results revealed that the main problem of bioethics in the curriculum is the dissociation between the discursive emphasis ascribed to the training in that field, and its development in the curricular practice. The triad patient –student – professor, projected to the family and the community, emerged as the foundation of the curriculum inasmuch as they are the protagonic agents of their lives. It is then possible to overcome the marginality of patients and the community when they are considered only as objects of study.