The Integration Program: an experience in professional education

Abstract

The Integration Program (IP), the pedagogical spinal column of the Medical School of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, seeks to combine training and service by introducing the students since the beginning to the reality of the work in primary care units and multi-professional teams. The program is conducted progressively from the second to the sixth semester of each course and begins with a survey of the territory covered by the Unit, its population and living conditions, later followed by a diagnosis of the health in this area that will build the basis for a planning of health actions in the last semester. This text is the report of a student who, through participating in this daily routine, realized the importance of this process for her professional education, allowing her not only to overcome a certain uneasiness in the first contact with the patient but also to modify her view - generally focused on disease - into a broader one, focused on thinking and working to favor and improve health. With this report, we aim to give to other institutions the opportunity to benefit from this experience, transforming their practices into successful partnerships like the here described