The curricular structure of the course features a coherent relationship between its disciplines and study lines. Syllabuses are meticulously reassessed each period; their bibliography is constantly updated and their pedagogical strategies are polished up. Several different strategies are employed, such as dialogic exposition, dramatization, seminars, individual and group work, discussions with public health professionals invited to present their field research, and panel discussions with graduates. These ones bridge the gap between the students and their final goal: to obtain a master’s degree and work in the family health care field.
The first term of the course focus on building knowledge and developing skills for making use of tools for analysing the state of primary health care, especially family health care, and it is comprised by the following disciplines:
- Local health diagnosis;
- Human resources and training in the health care area;
- State, market and public health policies;
- Introduction to family health care strategies; and
- Research seminar I.
The following term concentrates on planning and assessing actions, within the framework of policies and provision of health care services, in addition to presenting students a number of different research methodologies. The following disciplines are studied:
- Family health care services management and assessment;
- Family health care practices;
- Health promotion and education;
- Methods in qualitative research in the health area;
- Applied epidemiology for health care services;
- Research seminar II.
Reinforcement is provided through Integrated practice. It may be summarised as an exercise which makes use of active learning-teaching methodologies, when different discipline converge at a problem situation. It is set in a fictional municipality of about 40,000 inhabitants, lacking efficient health care, having low coverage of the Family Health Program, suffering from social and political issues, and having an inefficient and corrupt government. The probem situation taps into epidemiological and socio-demographic data from DATASUS’ Basic Health Indicators and Data of a real municipality, whose name and some indicators have been changed. It provides students with additional information about living conditions and health status of the countryside and six districts of the urban area identified in fictional maps, allowing for practice of interviews, when professors play the role of eminent characters of the local society. This discipline runs along the first year of the course, concentrating on establishing a diagnosis of the local health status in the first term and then, in the second term, students must plan an intervention in order to extend the coverage of the Family Health Program and enhance health care services and network performance. This second stage of the exercise is built upon the diagnosis established in the previous term and detailed information about available financial resources, requiring students to set priorities and goals.
The third term is dedicated to devising a research project and to the qualifying exam, in addition to elective courses, Research seminar III, and Family health care practice, when students, based on a preset script, develop a tool for analysing the management situation and then apply it in Family Clinics of Rio de Janeiro, in order to develop public health data analysis and problem solving skills.
Regarding the production of knowledge, the disciplines of qualitative methods (“Methods of Qualitative Research in Health”) and quantitative (“Epidemiology Applied to Health Services”), research seminars (I, II and III) and the disciplines “Family Health Based on Evidences and Tools of Content Analysis” aim to train students for the identification of problems that may be investigated, in recognition of adequate methodological tools for conducting research in service, as well as in the collection, consolidation and critical analysis of data produced within the scope of the professional work or available in the information system. The choice of the best methodological proposal is made by the student in partnership with his supervisor. In general, we have a numerical balance between quantitative and qualitative research.
Finally, the fourth semester is devoted essentially to the orientation and defense of the Dissertation. The workload of the “Professional Master Course in Family Health” comprises 30 credits in subjects, which corresponds to 450 hours / class. The Dissertation Orientation and the Dissertation Defense complement the course workload with the attribution of 12 credits corresponding to 180 hours / class, totaling 630 hours / class and 42 credits for curricular completion.