Teaching public health in undergraduate medical courses: a case study in three universities in Paraná.
OBJECTIVE
Historically, different concepts of public health have influenced both the specific teaching in this field and its participation in general physician training. Starting from this assumption, the objective of this paper was to study how public health has been taught in undergraduate medical courses, focusing on structure and on how this has affected curriculum design in three universities in the State of Paraná, Brazil.


METHODS
Qualitative investigation developed at Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL) and Universidade Positivo (UnicenP).


METHODS
This study included a documentary analysis on pedagogical projects and on how these are actually experienced by those working on them. Eleven managers and 18 teachers were interviewed, as well as four groups of students that were formed in the three medical courses.


RESULTS
Between 5 and 20% of Public Health topics were shown to be included in the curriculums, depending on the teaching strategies used. However, they were always set up within academic approaches that were strongly linked to healthcare services. This situation has been strengthened through the degree of progress made by the National Health System (Sistema Unico de Saúde, SUS) in both cities (Curitiba and Londrina).


CONCLUSIONS
Regardless of the nature of the university, the administrative and academic setup of the course and of the different ways of incorporating teachers, Public Health is present and takes on considerable relevance for medical training, even if it does not constitute a linking thread within undergraduate medical courses.
Núcleo de Estudos em Saúde Coletiva (NESCO), Department of Public Health. Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL), Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. jocampos@uel.br
João José Batista de
JJ
Campos
Paulo Eduardo Mangeon
PE
Elias
Luiz
L
Cordoni Junior
D001938:Brazil; D003479:Curriculum / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education*; D013663:Teaching / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014495:Universities