Doctors for Brazil Program: first results

Abstract

Access to medical care is essential to achieve quality primary health care (PHC). In Brazil, access difficulties still persist. The Doctors for Brazil Program (PMpB in Portuguese) aims to expand the offer of medical services in places of difficult provision or high vulnerability. It inno-vates insofar as it prioritizes smaller and rather isolated cities, by selecting professionals through an isonomic process, offering them training in Family and Community Medicine and a chance to build their first federal medical career in PHC. The program offers competitive salaries, progres-sion and financial incentives that value long-term commitment and performance. The PMpB is rolled out by the Agency for the Development of Primary Health Care (Adaps), which allows bet-ter management of public policies. The first nine months of the program showed promising results, as approximately 23,000 candidates seeking to join the program through its selection process, i.e., 97.1% vacancies were filled and retention rate af-ter admittance was 95.4%. These results show to what extent PMpB has improved in quality com-pared to previous policies, as well as how essential it is to keep implementing the program so that it may reach its full PHC coverage potential within the Brazilian public health system.