Medical education in primary healthcare: A multiple-approach experience to teaching, service and community integration practices

Abstract

The Brazilian National Health System (SUS) is a public universal system and adopts primary healthcare as the main coordinator of care. SUS requires that Brazilian universities offer a new professional education model. This article aims at discussing the medical education provided in an institution in a city in the Brazilian state of Bahia, taking primary healthcare and the National Curricular Guidelines as guidance for the Medicine courses. The experience with teaching, service and community integration practices (Piesc) brings together students, teachers, health professionals and SUS users, integrating different perspectto the health-disease-care process under the Family Health Strategy context. Piesc includes Collective Health and General Family and Community Medicine knowledge, covering different territories and social agents in the process of care, helping to change medical education for SUS.