Higher education in health is a complex issue mediated by various societal dynamics. Generally, in Western or Westernised countries, higher education in health is anchored in the hegemonic biomedical model and is guided by scientific-instrumental rationality, which leads to mechanised practises and an educational model with low critical-reflective potential. There seems to be a drive to maintain scientific determinisms in the understanding of health and disease processes, on the one hand, and in the understanding of teaching processes, on the other. What is established, therefore, is the authoritarian training of professionals through strictly technical knowledge.

This seminar aims to debate health training from three axes: epistemic plurality, reflections on care, and dialogues with the human and social sciences, taking qualitative research and debates developed at universities in Brazil and Portugal as a starting point. The aim is to draw attention to the hegemonic training model and its consequences for health care while presenting alternatives based on inter-epistemic dialogue, which is decisive for broadening perspectives and consolidating a more desirable way of conceiving and acting in health to meet the population's needs.

Bio notes

Sílvia Portugal - PhD in Sociology from the University of Coimbra. Associate Professor at FEUC and Researcher at CES. She has worked on theories of networks, gift, and care. Her most recent research focuses on health and mental illness, disability, and chronicity.

Emília Carvalho Leitão Biato - PhD in Education from the Federal University of Mato Grosso. Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Brasilia (UnB). She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at CES. She has experience in Collective Health and has focused on research in Human and Social Sciences in Health from the perspective of the philosophy of difference, with the following themes: health education, writing, qualitative research in health and education and the concept of health-disease.

Lucas Pereira de Melo - PhD in Sciences from the University of São Paulo. Professor in the area of Social Sciences in Health at the Department of Psychiatric Nursing and Human Sciences at USP's Ribeirão Preto School of Nursing. He has experience in Collective Health and Anthropology of Health, with an interest in themes such as experiences of long-term illness and suffering; differences, power, and health care; health activism and state practices based on a dialogue between anthropology of health and anthropology of the state.

Maria Beatriz Barreto do Carmo - PhD in Sciences from the University of São Paulo. Adjunct professor at the Institute of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences at the Federal University of Bahia. Lecturer in the Postgraduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies on the University. Visiting post-doctoral researcher at CES. Develops studies on epistemic plurality in health education.