This text discusses some professional practices carried out in the field of higher education in a context of curriculum changes in the medical and nursing courses of a public university (Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF - in Niterói, RJ, Brazil) and in the nutrition course of a private university (Universidade Metodista - UNIMEP - in Piracicaba, sp, Brazil). Based on concepts from institutional analysis, we investigate similarities and differences between the public and private processes of curriculum reform, as well as aspects of our own professional histories. This paper was produced in the context of disciplines and seminars in institutional analysis for the Graduate Program in Collective Health at the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine of the School of Medical Sciences at UNICAMP, conducted between 2002 and 2004 under the responsibility of the last-mentioned co-author of this article.
Institutional analysis; Curriculum reform; Teaching of nursing; Teaching of medicine; Teaching of nutrition