EDITORIAL

The second edition of the fifth year of Trabalho, educação e saúde highlights the historical processes involved in professionalizing health care, a field about which it is publishing three articles in this issue. Márcia Boen and Lúcia Emília Nuevo, in "Trabalho e formação profissional do atendente de consultório dentário e do técnico em higiene dental" ("Work and professional qualification of dentist office attendants and dental hygiene technicians"), point to the hurdles imposed on collective representation, discuss the lack of social prestige, and show how low professional credibility lingers on after the person is qualified and that this, in turn, indicates that regulating the category may lead to its legitimation. "O agente comunitário de saúde no âmbito das políticas voltadas para a atenção básica: concepções do trabalho e da formação profissional" ("The community health agent in the ambit of the policies aimed at basic health care: work and professional qualification concepts"), by Márcia Valéria Morosini, Anamaria Corbo, and Cátia Guimarães, meanwhile, examines the political processes - including the category's organized movement - regulations and legislation regarding these workers' professionalization, and highlights the challenges imposed on effectively implementing their technical schooling. Monica Vieira, in "Trabalho, qualificação e a construção social de identidades profissionais nas organizações públicas de saúde" ("Work, qualification, and the social construction of professional identities in public health organizations"), analyzes the changes that are currently being made in the profession of a very large occupational group in the health area - administrative agents - , and shows that multiple variables are involved in understanding a worker's way of being, including their professional qualifications, job ties, professional performance sector, how long they have been in the area, and how their activity is organized.

Two articles are published on professional qualification in health care. "Projeto de extensão universitária: um espaço para formação profissional e promoção da saúde" ("University extension project: a venue for professional qualification and health promotion"), by José Roberto da Silva Brêtas and Sônia Regina Pereira, deals with theoretical and practical issues involved in an articulated teaching, assistance, and research project carried out by the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). In the Health Care Promotion field, the project focuses on issues related to the body and to sexuality. Based on educational activities, it involves the university's undergraduate and graduate students and is undertaken among elementary and high school students in the Embu municipality (São Paulo). "Educação profissional em saúde: reflexões sobre a avaliação" ("Professional health education: reflections on assessments"), by Denise Antunes de Azambuja Zocche, discusses competency-based evaluations in technical nursing education, exploring its challenges and proposals as strategies to integrate all parties involved in teaching-learning in health and seeking possible emancipation in this process.

This edition also publishes a study on work division in health care and its impacts on worker organization. In an article titled "Work division in the health sector and the social relationship of tension between workers and managers", Arlene Ayala and Walter Ferreira de Oliveira analyze work management in the public health sector in Joinville (Santa Catarina), at the basic Unified National Health System's units. The authors highlight the fragmented nature of work organization in the sector, conflict domination by the management, production goal control, and forms of resistance.

The "Propaganda de medicamentos: como conciliar uso racional e a permanente necessidade de expandir mercado?" ("Medication advertising: how to reconcile rational use and the permanent need for market expansions?") assay, by Álvaro Nascimento, has the following issue as its starting point: in medication use, to what extend does the therapeutic requirement prevail and when does market pressure begin - including the media's role? The essay discusses, over and beyond inspection action efficacy, the regulative model adopted in Brazil, including the population's sanitary education and physician qualification.

This edition also publishes an interview with Tereza Ramos, reelected in early July, for a three-year term, the president of the National Community Health Agent Confederation, in addition to two digests about the books "Reflexões impertinentes: história e capitalismo contemporâneo" ("Im-pertinent reflections: history and contemporaneous capitalism"), by André Silva Martins and Daniela Motta de Oliveira; and Educação, comunicação e tecnologia educacional: interfaces com o campo da saúde" (Education, communication, and educational technology: interfaces with the health field"), by Valdir Castro.

Carla Martins

Angélica Fonseca

Isabel Brasil

Editorial Coordination

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Oct 2012
• Date of issue
  July 2007