Editorial
Interprofessional education in Brazil: building synergic networks of educational and healthcare processes
Ana Maria Chagas Sette Câmara(a)
Antonio Pithon Cyrino(b)
Eliana Goldfarb Cyrino(c)
George Dantas Azevedo(d)
Marcelo Viana da Costa(e)
Maria Isabel Barros Bellini(f)
Marina Peduzzi(g)
Nildo Alves Batista(h)
Sylvia Helena Souza da Silva Batista(i)
Scott Reeves(j)
(a)Departamento de Fisioterapia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. [email protected]
(b)Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, UNESP – Univ Estadual Paulista. Botucatu, SP, Brazil. [email protected]
(c)Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu, UNESP – Univ Estadual Paulista. Botucatu, SP, Brazil. [email protected]
(d)Escola Multicampi de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. Natal, RN, Brasil. [email protected]
(e)Departamento de Enfermagem, Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte. Pau dos Ferros, RN, Brasil. [email protected]
(f)Faculdade de Serviço Social, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. [email protected]
(g)Escola de Enfermagem, Universidade de São Paulo. São Paulo, SP, Brasil. [email protected]
(h)Centro de Desenvolvimento do Ensino Superior em Saúde, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp). campus Baixada Santista. Santos, SP, Brasil. [email protected]
(i)Departamento Saúde, Educação e Sociedade, Unifesp, campus Baixada Santista. Santos, SP, Brasil. [email protected]
(j)Centre for Health and Social Care Research, Kingston University; St George’s University of London. London, UK. [email protected]
Introduction
The health care practices supported by interprofessional education (IPE) and the debate about those processes are in the early stages in Brazil1. This does not mean that the country lacks a richness of previous experiences that are a fertile basis for expanding and strengthening IPE, being its conceptual framework and operational proposal very much in line with the cornerstones of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS)2. The SUS is the national public policy in health matters and is geared towards universal access, comprehensiveness and social participation, articulated around Primary Health Care as the backbone of the network3. In this editorial we outline social and political processes that have contributed to the development of interprofessional practice (IPP) in Brazil. We also describe an international colloquium which provided an important forum for discussion and debate around interprofessional education and collaboration. Based on discussions during this colloquium we go on to describe the establishment of a national collaborative network in interprofessional education and practice.
