PREVIEW NOTES

Partnership between education and the workplace for the development of new nurses: an exploratory study

Jaime Everardo Platner Cezario¹, Donizete Vago Daher^1
1Fluminense Federal University

ABSTRACT
Problem: The selection of this theme is based on the formation of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS, in Portuguese) and the PET Health Program, and how both became scenarios for significant learning.  This was a feature I observed while acting as a tutor and as a health professional involved in nurse education, observing the need to reflect on the challenges involved of the development of future nurses; reflections should also be made with regard to the possibilities of partnership between nurse education and the workplace in this process of professional development. Objective: To understand the potential and the weaknesses of the process of professional development as part of the PET Health Project. Method: This is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study, performed at Engenhoca Regional Polyclinic, with scholarship students and PET health tutors. The data will be collected through semi-structured interviews, and the analysis will lead to the creation of organized topic lists. Conclusion: We hope to contribute with an indicative reflection on the integration between the worlds of education and the workplace.  This could reveal an approach that is complex, concrete and yet, possible.
Keywords: Education; Health; Learning; Primary Health Care.

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

The observation of professional practice over the years, added to the range of scientific publications prove that, even though there are innovative proposals that defend the implementation of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS, in Portuguese), and therefore different ways of teaching which will develop to provide decontextualized health practices, these are guided by fragmented information and varied practices. The areas of education and health bring together a group of activities referred to as collective consumption services, which suffer from the need for all sorts of macro-structural adjustments. The role of education has focused primarily on the need to prepare subjects for a reality which is considered by a minority to be adequate. It is then translated in such a way as to be incorporated and better accepted by society, confirming the hegemony of some groups over others⁽¹⁾. The educational process involved in the formation of health professionals, must involve the development, not only of general abilities (related to the general field of health), but also those that are generated by the specificities of every speciality within the health profession. In spite of this, all educational processes in health should be able to develop multi-professional working conditions, enriching the need for an interdisciplinarity to create a healthcare service that moves away from an emasculated  and reduced axis – corporative-centered - to a plural and complex axis – user-centered⁽²⁾. In terms of the selection of the proposed topic - either the SUS development process or the PET Health Project - as a significant learning scenario, it is important that the chosen scenario allows a development of the relationship between work, education and health. My own experience as a tutor and as a health professional has allowed me to reflect on the challenges of professional development in the health service, and the possibilities of a partnership between education and the workplace. However, while identifying the necessity for change, searching for new concepts, and exploring innovative practices are indispensible elements, they are not enough to overcome the hegemonic paradigm, placed firmly inside and outside Academia⁽³⁾. The result of studies related to the development and construction of critical conscience and into the technical-scientific formation connected with the reality of the Brazilian system, can be inserted into the routine of the development of health professionals. The preoccupation with introducing the discussion of the social and political role of the professional in the workplace during their professional development into the agenda must be constant feature, such as the need to create b connections that aid the creation of knowledge and data input and output. We all act as leading figures  in the transformation of concepts and practices in healthcare that will guide the process of professional development as a means of producing professionals who are capable of comprehension and undertaking related action to ensure the integration of health practices,Sup>(3).

GUIDING QUESTIONS

Is the construction of politically critical professionals in the history of the SUS been mentioned as part of the professional development of nurses? Is it possible to integrate the learning and working worlds in the professional routine and in the process of professional development? What is the opinion of students and professionals about the process of professional development in terms of SUS and inside the System itself? Is the PET Health Project a useful tool with regard to professional development and the integration of education and the workplace? Does the experience of the PET Health Project help us to review and reorganize health practices?

OBJECTIVES

To understand the potential and the weaknesses of the process of professional development as part of the  PET Health Project; to identify the perceptions of scholarship holders and tutors of the PET Health Project about the integration between education and the workplace and its relationship with the formation of the SUS; to analyze the potential and weaknesses of the process of the professional development of health professionals, focusing the Program of Education through the Health Service.

METHOD

This is a study which makes use of a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory approach. The subjects are undergraduate students of Nursing, Medicine, Nutrition, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Physical Education, scholarship holders of the PET Engenhoca Program, and the tutors/service professionals involved. The scenario will be the Engenhoca Regional Polyclinic. Data collection will be done through individual semi-structured interviews,  involving the interviewer and the interviewee after the latter has signed a Free and Clear Consent Agreement. The interviews will be recorder and then transcribed by the researcher. The data will be analyzed  and organized into topic areas, with a subsequent analysis of the conversations and an assessment of the validity of the data using pertinent theory references. This study has been evaluated by the Ethics in Research Committee of the Medical School/Antônio Pedro College Hospital. The information and the anonymity of the subjects will be ensured according to Resolution 196/96.

REFERENCES

1. Santos AS. Educação em Saúde: reflexão e aplicabilidade em atenção primária à saúde. Online braz j nurs [ serial in the internet ]. 2006 [ cited 2012 May 28 ] 5(2). Available from: http://www.objnursing.uff.br/index.php/nursing/article/view/435/102  

2. Albuquerque VS, Gomes AP, Rezende CHA, Sampaio MX, Dias OV, Lugarinho RM. A Integração Ensino-serviço no Contexto dos Processos de Mudança na Formação Superior dos Profissionais da Saúde. Rev bras educ méd. 2008; 32(3): 356-62.

3. González AD, Almeida MJ. Integralidade da saúde – norteando mudanças na graduação dos novos profissionais. Ciênc saúde coletiva. 15 (3): 757-62; 2010.

Project Data: Dissertation Project of the Professional Master in Health Education at EEAAC/UFF. Awaiting evaluation from CEP/HUAP/UFF.
Address for correspondence: Jaime Everardo Platner Cezario
Rua Santa Rita 3, São Gonçalo, RJ BRAZIL ZIP:24738-776. Email: shovegan@yahoo.com.br.

Received: 28/06/2012
Approved: 04/09/2012