Perfil dos egressos da Faculdade de Medicina do ABC: o que eles pensam sobre atenção primária em saúde? Graduate profile from Faculdade de Medicina do ABC: what do they think about primmary healthcare?

Faculdade de Medicina do ABC (FMABC) graduated approximately 3,100 doctors until 2004. This paper aims to present their socio-demographic profile, their postgraduate continuous education activities, and the occupational and income profile of these graduates. It also shows their perception of the quality of education received in FMABC and their perception of primary healthcare (PHC). It was conducted a cross-sectional study, through a self applied structured questionnaire sent by post, in 2006, to a random sample of 800 FMABC former students. The variables are presented by means of frequencies. There were 152 questionnaires answered (88 for males former students and 64 for females). Almost 89% of the graduates are from Sao Paulo and 70.4% are married. The respondents (85.5%) considered the course of medicine excellent or good. Almost all (96.7%) the participants made medical residency. Almost all (90%) held its core business of working in the care sector. More than half (52%) earn between U$ 870 and 1,740 dollars. The majority (80.3%) characterized PHC “as the main entry of the health system”, a conception that affiliate themselves to an organizational design of PHS, taken it as part of a pyramidal system of care. While 82.9% consider that PHC had medium/high importance in their professional life, few (2.6%) defined as the area of operation of a work in the treatment of complex health problems. These data demonstrate that the debate on medical training and on the role of PHC in the health system should be expanded, in order to overcome dichotomous views on the reality.