The principal factors that influence and configure professional insertion in societies with regulated labor markets and complex, well-structured healthcare systems and professional organizations are the assistance modalities, the professional competences and the technological organization of labor. To evaluate the perspectives for the incorporation of new characteristics to the medical professional profile while implanting new service practices (Family Health Program) in the context of the Program for Articulation of Teaching and Service in Florianópolis, we interviewed teachers and fifth year medical students at the Federal University at Santa Catarina. The results revealed that the current performance in healthcare practices and the socialization offered by the university experience are factors contributing strongly to understanding the incorporation of new identity characteristics by students and professionals. The students recognized the need to acquire new practices and knowledge profiles and to restore the ethical bases and relationships of medicine that were lost with specialization and the extremely technical character of modern medicine. Nevertheless, a desire for specialization still remains among the students, who consider the Family Health Care Program as a promising labor market until they achieve an ideal professional specialization.
Professional practice; medical education; teaching care integration services; family health program; program evaluation; health services research