It’s a honor to present a scientific publication that has been prepared and constructed with such intense dedication as this supplement of Interface on “Successful healthcare educational experiences within healthcare networks and interprofessionalism: PET-Saúde groups and the change on the undergraduate healthcare courses.”

Much of this is due to the efforts made by the entire team involved with the editorial production of the supplement; more of this is due to all the hands that took up the challenge of writing up and reflecting on the experiences contained in the hundreds of studies sent in; and even more so, through the actions, emotions and reflections produced and experienced by the thousands of people who are constructing PET-Saúde andPró-Saúde within the day-to-day routine.

And, sincerely, with the type of experience that PET-Saúde provides, what else could be expected? It mobilizes individuals and groups with different expectations, but all with initiative and the desire to move health education and care forward. Looking through the studies presented in this issue reveals individuals who are committed to constructing innovative scenarios for generous comprehensive healthcare practices, with the capacity both to care for and to educate all those involved: workers, users, students and teachers. These are individuals with a commitment towards experimenting with ways of thinking about and constituting educational paths that are conducted in-service and starting from the service, thereby mobilizing an important process of continuing education, so as to positively influence both at the undergraduate and the residency level. These individuals have a commitment to intervene in the way that services are organized, as collective entities for caring for health and for developing the individuals who work in these services every day, as professionals and human beings. In short, these are individuals who are prepared to experiment, to learn from what they do, to gather strength and to enthuse people to rethink and transform their ways of teaching, doing research and constructing relationships between the school and SUS.

All these experiences and all these studies seem to thicken the cultural broth that leads towards action of increasing power that is committed to the important changes and transformations that are to be effected in Brazilian teaching institutions for healthcare professionals. PET-Saúde increasingly needs to cease to be the experience of only some people, even though this is large number, so that it can become the daily practice of all students and teachers. It needs to cease to consist of actions that are parallel to or only partly integrated with the curriculum, so as to become translated as continual innovation within the student training process. It also needs to cease to be an example of healthcare services that are benefited simply through the good relationship between its workers and teachers who are committed and dedicated and to start to be an expression of stable and sustainable relationships and ways of organization between teaching institutions and healthcare services.

This is a timely moment. The new instruments of Law 12871, which created the “More Doctors” program and gave to the Brazilian State innovative tools for guiding the education of healthcare professionals in accordance with the needs of the Brazilian Health System (SUS) and the Brazilian population, have added to the struggle for changes to undergraduate healthcare courses that has been developed over recent decades. The expression “healthcare professionals” should be emphasized because this law provides the conditions for education to be moved forward, not only for future doctors but also for all profesionals in this field. We are going through a very rewarding time, with implementation of new curricular guidelines, qualified assessments on students and institutions, greater integration between teaching and service, innovative education within different fields of healthcare practice and expansion of residency programs (both medical and multiprofessional). All of this will require a healthcare network that is increasingly caring and educative. The challenge of PET-Saúde is to adopt a reflective approach so as to envisage being an integral and strength-providing part of this broad movement.

This is a good challenge for the thousands of individuals and groups that dare to reinvent themselves every day in order to construct care and education practices that are increasingly committed towards production of life.

Hêider Aurélio Pinto
General Secretary for Healthcare Work and Education (SGTES), Ministry of Health

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