Teachers’ role in strengthening teaching-service-community integration policies: The context of Brazilian medical schools

Abstract

This article analyzes the teachers’ participation and integration in healthcare services based on the perception of institutional actors of medical schools in Brazil. This qualitative study used the Wheel Method for data collection, and content analysis as a data analysis technique. Forty-one undergraduate medical courses took part in the study, eighteen of which are private and twenty-three, public. The results show that teachers’ participation and teaching-service integration are limited to the accomplishment of actions included in the courses’ pedagogical projects, sometimes decontextualized from the reality of the services. It is concluded that, in order to strengthen teaching-service-community integration policies, it is necessary to invest in teacher education, raising the awareness of teaching professionals to an effective integration into the health system and recognition of their social role as agents of change.