Abstract
We discuss the professional integration of Collective Health graduates, particularly regarding the challenges, the potentialities and the strategies of integration in the world of labor. The production of data occurred mainly by means of three focal group sessions with the graduates from the classes of 2012.2, 2013.2 and 2014.2 of the undergraduate course on Collective Health of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, in Portuguese). The resulting accounts were systematized and subjected to Bardin’s thematic content analysis technique. Regarding the professional challenges, we discuss the subcategories: salary, recognition of the Collective Health profession, political interference, and identity. As for the potentialities, they have the following subcategories: practical experiences during the undergraduate studies; a center for knowledge and practice in Collective Health; and the circumstances within the Municipal Health Department of the state capital of Natal. Regarding the strategies for professional integration, we identified actions of an individual as well as collective nature, a movement organized by graduates and students, who aim to divulge the course and its professional, as well as to make progress in the process of construction of a new profession.
collective health; job market; undergraduate studies in collective health