The experiences of indigenous students in public medical courses in Brazil

• Grant number: 19/09426-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: October 01, 2019 - March 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Eliana Goldfarb Cyrino
• Grantee: Eliana Goldfarb Cyrino
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FMB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Willian Fernandes Luna

Abstract

Medicine and the professional performance of physicians have undergone transformations over time, reflecting the changes in Brazilian society and in the world. In the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution and the scientific advance brought to the fore a technical and biological understanding of the disease, which culminated in a world dispersion of the compartmentalization of the individual and intense professional specialization. In Brazil, medical undergraduations schools contribute little to acting in inter-ethnic and intercultural contexts, as in the case of acting in indigenous health. The reflecting of this is the unpreparedness to deal with specificities that go beyond the issues that pertain to the strict sense recovery of health. In this context of intercultural issues, historically there is little access for indigenous people to enter higher education as university students, not allowing the formation of health professionals - more specifically physicians - that are from these communities. In recent years, strategies have been created, some locally and some nationally, so that the right of access to higher education is guaranteed to indigenous people, such as inclusion and affirmative action programs, when a larger number of indigenous people to public universities. The training of indigenous people in medical courses may favor the presence of professionals in remote locations, which may lead to an improvement in health services, however, there is still a great demand for entry into medical courses. In this way, there are still many paths to be pursued in the search for the training of indigenous professionals for health work, who may be more competent to work with the needs of the communities themselves, favoring health in its complexity. This research aims to understand the experiences of indigenous students who attend medical schools in public schools, based on their narratives. It will be sought to identify the indigenous students who attend medical graduation in the various public schools in Brazil, in 2018 and 2019. The students' experiences will be analyzed in the process of entry and stay in the course, identifying potentialities, fragilities and overcomes. It will also be analyzed the intercultural encounter of their traditional knowledge in front of the knowledge offered in medical graduation, including discussing the perspectives of these future health professionals. The field of research is the indigenous students of medical courses across the country. In order to understand the field, we opted to develop a research with a qualitative approach using questionnaire, individual interviews, conversation wheel and field diary. It will be carried out an analysis of the content of the materials, aiming initially to evaluate as to its quality and sufficiency. Subsequently, for the analysis of content from the qualitative perspective, the procedures of categorization, inference, description and interpretation will be performed. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the presence of these indigenous people in Brazilian public medical schools, bringing to light the main potentialities, weaknesses and forms of overcoming that these students experience. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

LUNA, WILLIAN FERNANDES; TEIXEIRA, KARLA CAROLINE; DE LIMA, GIOVANA KHARFAN. Mapeamento e experiências de indígenas nas escolas médicas federais brasileiras: acesso e políticas de permanência. Interface (Botucatu), v. 25, 2021. (19/24876-9, 19/24863-4, 19/09426-7)