Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper presents preliminary results of the research "Health technologists' education in Brazil: trends, current scenario and amount/quality relationship". At first, data from college education censuses are analyzed (1991-2006), aiming at the identification of the main characteristics of the development of the offer of health technologists' education courses, being emphasized the private character of the offer explosion, mainly from the first years of the century on, and, as a consequence, the remodeling of the professional education of the 90s, in Brazil. After that, questions regarding the profile of the technologist are presented, as well as the historical characteristics of these courses and the pertinence of their offer within the health area, comparing the specificities of the technician's, the technologist's and the bachelor's education. As a conclusion, indications for the continuity of this research are pointed out, aiming at carrying out compared studies on the education of health technologists in Brazil and in other countries.

This article presents a team training experience of Primary Care and managers of the secretary of health of the city of Amparo, Sao Paulo, where cases are discussed in supervised groups, altered by the method of Espirais D'Ascese [Spirals of Asceticism]. This method seeks to support health care professionals in the amplification of the clinic and in the management of groups and collectives, based on the theoretical references of the Paideia method and of the psychology of groups to work on interactions and conflicts. We selected six cases and analyzed aspects of the process of attachment and maturation of this group, which enabled the transformation of destructive feelings into constructive feelings. The presentation and discussion of the cases provided demonstrations of the group's unconscious. It is a way for the group to talk about itself through the clinical case (or managerial), which functions as a metaphor of the group's feelings. Recognizing and accommodating the difficulties strengthens the group because of the realization that everyone has weaknesses and as a result of their sharing, there is dissolution of anxieties, fears, and other feelings that hinder the construction of solutions. An integrated, prepared, and mature group will provide better health care to the population, with less illness and absenteeism and greater professional achievement.

The objective of this study is to understand and problematize the term 'integral' in professional education and health. This term is related to ways to produce health in the core of the services and in education with total access to the knowledge involved in work and education. In health care, the relationship between the professional, with his techniques and knowledge, and the user with his needs and desire to return to autonomy, is one of the areas that points o the integrality of production in health. It is in this environment that professionals and users have power and autonomy and can cooperate or compete. In the study, we used a literature-based qualitative bibliography. Through successive readings of the bibliographic material, we produced an argumentative discussion between different theoretical references in the areas of health and education. In the end, it was possible to identify the different ties that constitute the integrality in health education.

The comparison is based on the analogy that is the process of perceiving the differences and similarities in the relationship with the other, people and objects. The issue about the other and the recognition of alterity is the basis of the knowledge of the very own identity and of the distinction in regards to the other beings. Just as sciences have a genesis and a development along the mankind history, the epistemological issues also bear a historicity. When reflecting about the truth of compared studies, about their epistemology, we see they are understandable and convincing as the sociology, the history, the anthropology, the politics, the education etc. refer to the history of their creation. There in the social subjects who produced them are present, as well as the ideologies that pervaded their ideas regarding the scientific truth. In this text, after some preliminary questions required by the handling of the issue, which are, knowledge and truth, history and historicity and the meaning of comparison, I present some reference authors who dealt with this theme and, as follows, some comparative studies I developed in previous creations regarding the matter.

The article criticizes some currently dominant modalities of determinism, distancing itself from randomized and post-modern thinking. We look to contribute to the sensitive objective explanation of the world in order to keep effective intervention open and conscious in the historical process. The argument presents a paradoxical and painful contrast between economic determinism and a restricted freedom that accompanies it, and then shows how Marxist thought allowed them to overcome the impasses in which both the deterministic naturalists, as well as the post- modern anti-determinists had found themselves. This step requires the demonstration of the development of the work process, in its ontological view (Lukacs), as well as the historic view (Marx), pointing to the effective materialism of social relations, as a means of distribution of singular beings together with the activities of production of its social existence. We conclude by showing how determination in Marxism is not simplistic, and therefore, is not based on an economic truism.

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This article presents results of the monitoring of graduates of the School of Health Technology at the State University of Montes Claros, discussing the contribution offered in the education and evaluation done by the students, as well as the professional level in which they find themselves. A telephone survey was used as quantitative methodology, using computer assisted telephone interviews which addressed graduates of technical courses in clinical laboratory science, nursing, pharmacy, dental hygiene, radiology, and trade, offered between June, 2003 and May, 2007. The main results indicate that 78.3% of graduates in the health sector are in the labor market, 73.9% receive one to two minimum wages, 85% recognize that the knowledge acquired helped improve the quality of their work, and 97.2% positively evaluated the faculty and the institution, enhancing the chances of qualification, since they have to overcome many obstacles in order to study. It was concluded that the school fulfills its educational and social role by qualifying professionals placed in health services, enabling their insertion and permanence in the labor market and providing opportunities of professional education for workers living in cities of northern Minas Gerais and other regions. The education developed by the school seeks inclusion, citizenship, and critical-reflexive education.

The work of community health agents (CHA) was established as a profession in the sphere of the National Health System (SUS) in 2002. Its activities contribute to the demographic diagnosis of communities, the promotion of educational activities, the participation of the population in public policy, and home visits. Training is the responsibility of technical schools and human resources education centers of the SUS. This research seeks to identify, analyze and understand the changes in the life of the CHA since the agent's insertion in the Qualification and Professional Development Program and of his/ her professional practice. Methodologically, this is a qualitative study that uses focus groups. For data analysis, we used the technique of content analysis. It was found that the Program favors the consolidation of attention to health policies and contributes to the collective construction of knowledge. The Ministry of Health, by professionalizing the practice of the CHA, legitimizes the CHA´s knowledge supporting their inclusion in health services and increasing the local governance. For the CHA, training contributes to the overcoming of limits imposed by traditional practices and marks the production of knowledge. The ACS recognizes itself as a subject of action, and that training is a means of access to professionalization and social mobility.

This article is the result of a descriptive and exploratory study conducted with the coordinators and teachers of the Nursing and Nutrition courses from an institution of higher education in the city of Divinópolis, in Minas Gerais state. The aim is to detect and assess changes in the training of health professionals by observing what happens in this city and to characterize the training of health professionals in the light of relevant legislation and with an emphasis on policy and public health programs proposed by the National Curriculum Guidelines for health courses. Problems with the disciplinary actions and principles, guidelines and concepts related to the National Health System are among the main difficulties reported by the interviewees. It is a scientific article that intends to contribute to the already produced knowledge and to provide support to the discussions that coordinators, teachers, and students wanted to have about the necessary updating of the knowledge and practices of nursing and nutrition professionals, according to the new model of health development in Brazil.