Sou bacharel em saúde coletiva, e agora? Sobre quando novos sanitaristas entram no mundo do trabalho

Abstract

The debates in the field of Public Health have claimed that SUS required a new strategic player to boost the changes not reached during the Sanitary Reform, since only the graduate training in the field for the practice of Public Health professionals was not enough. Accordingly, the Undergraduate Courses in Public Health were established. At the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), this course is called Management in Health Systems and Services (GSSS, as per its acronym in Portuguese). This research is intended to analyze how the insertion (space, time and conditioning factors) and professional performance of newly-trained professionals from the GSSS Course at UFRN happen, more specifically: to identify limits, potentialities and strategies in the professional insertion of newly-trained professionals; to identify the activities developed by newly-trained professionals at work; to analyze the challenges for newly-trained professionals in the job market; to analyze the conditioning factors of this Course in the professional insertion and performance; and to know the viewpoint of coordinators about the establishment and training of the GSSS Course. This study is linked to the notion of researchers involved and to the reflexivity as a line of thought of research. The production of data took place through the Focal Group technique and individual interviews with a semi-structured script, both of which were conducted with newly-trained professionals of the Course in the periods of 2012.2, 2013.2 and 2014.2, being that coordinators of the aforementioned Course were also interviewed. Regarding the insertion, the challenges were categorized in: wage; recognition of the profession in Public Health; professional identity and political interference. Concerning the potentialities, they were categorized in: training; core of knowledge and practice of Public Health; and the scenario of the Municipal Health Department of Natal; and the strategies for insertion are actions of a collective and individual nature aimed at disseminating the Course and its professional, besides advancing in the construction of a new profession. As for the professional performance, the activities developed at work by the newly-trained professionals are described, which are associated with the training line of Planning, Management and Assessment in Health. These professional activities enhance the idea of the GSSS Course as it concerns the training of Health Managers to deal with health services and systems. Nevertheless, one can consider that the performance of a generalist in Public Health will go beyond this field of operation. The challenges for the professional performance of new Public Health professionals are displayed with a structural nature in the job market of other professions, and they were categorized in: power relations, institutional culture and employment bond, which are challenges that influence the mental health of workers. Regarding the influence of the training in the professional insertion, one can highlight the Curricular Internship, because the student expands his knowledge and gives professional visibility to himself by the bond with the other professionals. Furthermore, the newly-trained professionals bring their positive and negative criticism of the training that influenced their professional performance. Due to the training and professional performance, the newly-trained professionals of the Undergraduate Course in Public Health are new Public Health professionals with a differentiated identity in relation to the Public Health professionals graduated in Public Health and coming from other undergraduate courses.