Nunca fomos Flexnerianos: Anísio Teixeira e a educação superior em saúde no Brasil

Abstract

The aim of the current article is to explore central features of Anísio Teixeira’s “thought-action” approach in order to help overcome the current crisis in health personnel training. First, the article summarizes Teixeira’s life and work, assessing his institutional legacy and its impact on the historical scenario in Brazil’s educational system. Second, it discusses his model for a People’s University, promoted and implemented twice in Brazil’s recent history, but crushed by harsh political repression. Third, the article assesses the potential contribution of Teixeira’s work to the current political and pedagogical debates on professional and academic training in health, focusing on similarities with Flexnerian models for university reform. Finally, it raises the hypothesis that the conceptual and pragmatic convergence between Abraham Flexner and Anísio Teixeira allows understanding the absence or invisibility of Teixeira’s thinking in the academic literature on Health Education, in the institutional discourse, or in human resources training practices in Brazil.