Academic and professional profile and impact of graduates from the Nephrology Graduate Program at UNIFESP

Graduate studies in Brazil have experienced significant growth since the 1990s. Over a 40-year period, the Graduate Program in Nephrology at Unifesp has qualified 261 master's graduates, 111 doctors and 146 individuals who completed both a master's and a doctoral degree. Of these, 278 hold a degree in Medicine. Medical postgraduates were responsible for 124 master's dissertations and 243 doctoral theses completed.

This study analyzed the profile and professional trajectories of graduate students from the Nephrology Graduate Program at Unifesp.

The authors used the university's database to establish the graduates' profile and applied a questionnaire to identify their professional performance in academia and the job market. The graduates were divided into three groups: G1 - 1976 to 1997 (N = 127); G2 - 1998 to 2006 (N = 150); G3 - 2007 to 2015 (N = 241).

Regarding sex, male medical graduates were responsible for 53.6% of all completion papers; however, in the most recent period, women accounted for 61% of the works. Female participation was consistently higher among graduates from other areas, at 73.8% of the total. Among the physicians, 65.5% graduated from public universities, with the first group standing out with 73%. In the other groups, 59.5% and 59.8% came from public HEIs, respectively. The overall average income reported by master's graduates responding to the questionnaire ranged from 5 to 10 minimum wages (MW), and for doctors, above 10 MW.

Doctoral graduates had a strong presence in academia, predominantly within the public sector.