[Internship in Public Health at the Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu]

An experiment in the teaching of public health for interns in the sixth year of medical training was launched in 1978 on the basis of the clinical practice of health services in Botucatu and neighboring municipalities. The course was designed to promote the practice of primary medical care, contacts with the different health professionals, analysis of the relations between health and the social structure, and an understanding of the organization of medical care in Brazil through discussions of day-to-day activities in health services, and of the role of medicine and medical care in the present capitalistic production structure of Brazil. The paper reports on the teaching experiment in 1978 and 1979, when the supervised training was taken by 85 and 95 interns, respectively, in groups of seven or eight for periods of 18 working days at the Botucatu Health Center-School (CSE) and the Anhembi and Itatinga Health Services. A comparison of the answers to tests given before and after the training and the opinions recorded by the students on the activities carried on show an improvement in their perceptions of team-work and of health education in the role of medicine and medical care in society. Most of the students expressed open approval of the training as a whole.