Reflections and proposals for the establishment of Family and Community Medicine Master's Programs in Brazil.

Leandro David Wenceslau,Thiago Gomes Da Trindade,Thiago Dias Sarti

doi:10.1590/1413-81232020254.29802019

Abstract

While Primary Health Care (PHC) and Family and Community Medicine (FCM) have expanded their space and relevance in health care and undergraduate medical courses, Brazil has no stricto sensu FCM postgraduate programs. In this paper, we analyze some aspects of the Brazilian public health field and the national stricto sensu postgraduate system that can help to explain this scenario. As a contribution to the debate on this topic, we also gathered information from international postgraduate and research experiences in FCM and devised a curriculum proposal for future national FCM master's courses. In the end, we discussed some key strategies for the emergence of stricto sensu postgraduate courses in this discipline in Brazil, highlighting the potential of these programs for evaluation and qualification of primary care services, especially the Family Health Strategy, and the training of PHC specialists required for the consolidation of the Unified Health System (SUS) as an accessible, comprehensive and equitable health system for the Brazilian population.

Highlights

We discussed some key strategies for the emergence of stricto sensu postgraduate courses in this discipline in Brazil, highlighting the potential of these programs for evaluation and qualification of primary care services, especially the Family Health Strategy, and the training of Primary Health Care (PHC) specialists required for the consolidation of the Unified Health System (SUS) as an accessible, comprehensive and equitable health system for the Brazilian population
Brazil has considered Primary Health Care (PHC) as the organizing base of its public health system – the Unified Health System (SUS), and, more recently, this has been the strategy adopted by the supplementary health care system[1,2]
2019 data from the Ministry of Health show that 74.2% and 63.8% of people are potentially covered by Primary Health Care in general and Family Health Strategy (ESF) teams, respectively, with more than 43,000 ESF teams today[3]

Summary

Introduction

Brazil has considered Primary Health Care (PHC) as the organizing base of its public health system – the Unified Health System (SUS), and, more recently, this has been the strategy adopted by the supplementary health care system[1,2]. A reference that partly supplies this lack of guiding examples and documents for stricto sensu postgraduate programs is the series of papers Research agenda for general practice/family medicine and primary health care in Europe[29,30,31,32,33] In these papers, the results of literature reviews carried out on scientific production on topics related to each of the six essential skills of FCM defined by WONCA were published by members of the European General Practice Research Network, as follows: primary care management, comprehensive approach, patient-centered care, holistic approach, specific problem-solving skills, and community guidance. Teaching-learning (TL) in TL methods and TL in Family Medicine - TL in health care

Research methods bases

Results

Findings