This study aims to understand the role of ambulatory in the dynamics of power relations and construction of identity of the therapist's profession of the Western contemporary medicine. Data were collected through open interviews and direct observations in two nosocomial unities of the Rio de Janeiro city (Hospital Pedro Ernesto, Posto de Saúde São Francisco Xavier) with 12 doctors. The ambulatory appears in the speech of the professionals in beginning of career like negative and monotonous persistence that obstructs the diagnosis of new pathologies. It appears also like sort of forming rite of passage of the medical identity. This public dimension of the medical institutions was marked by the frequency of patients from the lowest social strata, transmitting relations of class and domination inherent to our society, but it also presents signs of a dynamics in the medical field that can help understand social processes.
outpatient department; Western contemporary medicine; relations of power; civil service of health; medical sociology