This study analyzes the professional trajectories of five doctors working within the Family Health Program (PSF) in a municipal district of the Northeast of Brazil. Through life histories, circumscribed to the examination of the professional sphere, the study focuses on the following marks in the construction of their careers: the choice of the profession, the process of professional formation, and insertion in the job market, particularly, within the PSF. The data indicates that PSF has become a new job market for doctors. The analysis of their practice in this context reveals, however, a tension between clinical knowledge, that operates within biomedical rationality and is socially legitimated, and the preventive-promotional actions that gain priority the PSF. At the same time, PSF seems to be a potential locus for operating transformations in the medical professional that, as a subject, is capable of transforming the significance of his/her practice, redeeming its human and social dimensions.
physician; trajectory; health family; health practice