This essay discusses the new scenarios for the training of health professionals for the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS, Unified Health System) and how they are related the proposals made in the report entitled "Health Professionals for a New Century: Transforming Education to Strengthen Health Systems in an Interdependent World". It was drafted by an independent committee made up of 18 professionals and academics from several countries, led by physicians and professors Julio Frenk and Lincoln Chen and created in January 2010, in the United States, by the health sector to honor the centennial of the Flexner Report. The purpose of the report was to lay down recommendations for the adoption of educational and institutional innovations aimed at training a new generation of professionals in order for them to be best equipped to deal with the area's present and future challenges in a comprehensive perspective of health promotion. The discussion resulted in the perception that, despite governmental policies and programs created in Brazil since 2001 and of timely institutional initiatives, health area professionals still get training that is strongly guided by a hospital-centric educational conception, categorizes illnesses based on biological criteria, and dissociates clinic practice and politics, something that is not suitable to help strengthen the SUS.
training of health professionals; curriculum organization in health; education and health