Editorial

In the original Trabalho, Educação e Saúde project, we proposed the inclusion of the Account section as we identified a necessity to create spaces where experiences of professional education in health and, in particular, training for mid-level professionals could gain visibility. For a number of years, this section fulfilled this expectation. However, the emphasis that training began acquiring among health policies, with the institution of several government programs for training at the technical level and further education level, led to an expressive increase in experiences in this area.

A number of texts with higher education as their purpose have been submitted to the Account section of the journal. Currently, it seems to be more relevant for us to position ourselves with regards to health-related training issues, by recognizing the importance of the theoretical reflection gained by these experiences. Thus the editorial board of Trabalho, Educação e Saúde has decided to expand the number of articles per issue and suspend the publication of the account texts. Those already under evaluation will be published, if approved.

In this issue, the first two texts cover issues pertaining to the dentistry field. The first is an essay entitled Division of dentistry work in perspective: the challenge of interpreting technicians' abilities, by Carlo Zanetti, José Oliveira and Maria Helena Mendonça. Theoretically, it is balanced by references to historical institutionalism and it relies on significant processes to discuss professionalization in dentistry. Accordingly, it brings to the fore international scenarios, with the purpose of subsequently centering the analysis on the Brazilian context. The authors aim to summarize the political debate and, among their conclusions, they indicate the insufficiency of research and analyses that assume dentistry in Brazil as a professional phenomenon, and they criticize the way in which the social division of dentistry work is incorporated into the Public Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde or SUS).

The article Collective Health and new curricular directives in dentistry: a proposal for undergraduate courses, by Sérgio Freitas, Maria Cristina Calvo and Josimari Lacerda, is centered on the relationship between the definition of curricular directives and the configuration of professional operations. The authors indicate the simultaneous necessity to adapt the formation of national curricular directives and to mobilize pedagogic resources that create an approximation of this training to professional operations in the context of the Public Health System.

The article Health promotion: the concept of professionals at a Family Health Unit, by Carol Rodrigues and Kátia Ribeiro, prioritized dialog with mid-level professionals in order to investigate whether the promotion of health is understood in conceptual terms and, also, in the formulation of policies. The results indicate a disconnect between the incorporation of the expanded conception of health compared to systematized knowledge on health promotion policy. The difficulty in establishing and undertaking planned activities within the sphere of health promotion for the elderly was another result discussed by the research. Ongoing education in health is indicated by the authors as one of the possibilities of making health promotion a concept that guides work within the sector.

The institutionalization of the work of the community health agent is the title of the article by Agleildes Queirós and Luci Lima. In the research that led to this article, the authors intended to recognize the contradictions that permeate the institutionalization of the community health agent (ACS), from a historical perspective, supported by the results of a qualitative survey. The text makes us think about the possible ambiguity of the profile of these professionals, who have the dual roles of agent of the State and community mobilizer imbued into their identity. Among other reflections, it covers the repercussions of this process in the investments that are made around their training and professional regulation, and it emphasizes popular wisdom as a fundamental component of the educational work of the ACS.

The article The teaching of biosecurity in technical courses on clinical analyses, by Andrezza Picolli, Mônica Wermelinger and Antenor Amâncio, presents a critical and current panorama of technical work in health care, with emphasis on clinical analyses. It discusses the teaching of biosecurity based on an investigation among teachers in the public school network. The nucleus of the research is based on teaching practices, and the conclusions indicate the importance of executing changes to the curriculum plan, extrapolating the biologicist perspective that predominates the coverage of the subject, as well as the necessity to incorporate pedagogic strategies that empower the approximation between the training of technicians in clinical analysis and the necessities of the Public Health System.

The changes brought on by the definition of the national curricular directives for health education in 2002 have led to studies in several areas. In the article The teaching of Collective Health at the Londrina State University: from document analysis to student perception, the authors Flávia Gonçalves, Brígida Carvalho and Celita Trelha position the movement of approximation between education and physiotherapy and collective health. The discussion in the article is sustained by an analysis of curricular rolls and direct dialog with graduate students. The three detail the advances achieved in the prescribed curriculum, but they also indicate the necessity to promote a more significant integration between theory and practice, as well as conceptual analyses.

In Repercussions of the teaching-learning process in health services in the quality of life of users, Maria Regina Delfino et al. take on the theoretical and political debate that marks a reflection about quality of life. Then they propose a fairly original question that gives the text its title and guides the investigation. The conclusions indicate a perception of acceptance by the users, who attribute the fairly positive characteristics to the relationship between students and professors reflected in the general evaluation of the quality of healthcare received.

The interviewee in this issue is Eduardo Luis Menéndez Spina, an Argentine anthropologist who has been living in Mexico since 1976. Produced by Ana Lúcia Pontes and Renata Cortez, the interview covers the main contributions by Menéndez in the field of medical anthropology, highlighting professional healthcare and self-administered healthcare and relationship-focused models.

Finally, the magazine is also publishing two reviews. Márcia Valéria Morosini develops the analysis of the book O agente comunitário de saúde: práticas educativas (The community health agent: educational practices), organized by Fábio Luiz Mialhe. The publication Saúde do trabalhador na sociedade brasileira contemporânea (Workers' health in modern Brazilian society), organized by Carlos Minayo, Jorge Machado and Paulo Pena, is examined by Luis Henrique da Costa Leão.

Angélica Ferreira Fonseca

Carla Macedo Martins

Marcela Alejandra Pronko

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 July 2012
• Date of issue
  Oct 2012