PALESTRA
Alba Lúcia Bottura Leite de Barros
Titular Professor of Universidade Federal de São Paulo - UNIFESP - São Paulo (SP), Brasil
Corresponding Author
It was founded in 1939 during the management of Doctor Octavio de Carvalho, Director of Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM - Medicine Faculty), aiming to graduate nurses to manage Hospital São Paulo, along with EPM doctors, besides introducing Brazilian religious women to the technical and modern knowledge of the nursing art(1).
The course curriculum initially complied with the institution itself and the society's needs. Teaching was offered by the physician professors and by the nurse religious women of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, who came from France. Their trip was mediated by São Paulo Archdiocese Archbishop "Dom José Gaspar", in response to the request of Professor Álvaro Guimarães Filho, EPM Vice-Director(2).
The faculty, which was initially denominated Escola de Enfermeiras do Hospital São Paulo in 1942, was officially recognized with the first group graduation, following the Escola de Enfermagem Anna Nery model (Anna Nery Nursing Faculty), in Rio de Janeiro, officially declared the standard.
In May, 1968, by Decree n. 62.689, the faculty had its name changed to Escola Paulista de Enfermagem (EPE), whose maintainer was the Sociedade Paulista para o Desenvolvimento da Medicina (São Paulo's Society for the Medicine Development).
According to Souza(3), the "profession is performed within a context, a circumstance comprised of several nature aspects, with emphasis to the political, economic, social an cultural aspects". The same author states that "the more complex the context becomes, the more impacts it brings to the evolution processes of graduation and professional performance, which also become a multi-aspect and pluralist process with regard to its philosophical, ideological, scientific, and practical application conceptions". This statement reflects this Faculty evolution.
In the sixties, the Brazilian Nation, invested for the first time through the Departamento Nacional de Saúde Pública (Public Health National Department), in a preventive coutrywide public health policy(1).
The same author states that "with the social security public system consolidation, the nurse starts performing a priority role, both for collective health, and individual health, performing the functions of preventive and curative care".
In 1962, to comply with legislation(4), EPE started offering the higher education course. It is worth highlighting that the curriculum and study load did not need any alterations, for its contents complied with the Conselho Federal de Educação (National Education Council) decree demands.
The seventies were marked by the Dictation period and by the country integration to the international capitalism. The advent of Intensive Care Units, the biomedical medicine, and the pharmaceutical industry evolution had an impact, during this decade, on the graduation courses teaching(5).
The Nursing Management of Hospital São Paulo is no longer performed by professors and ex-students.
In 1977, EPE was federalized as Departamento de Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina (Nursing Department of the Medicine Faculty), in compliance with EPM intentions to become a University, and its management was, for the first time, performed by a secular professor.
By this time, the post-graduation courses were initiated. Twelve years after the EPE federalization as an EPM Department, in 1989, on the Nursing Graduation Course fiftieth anniversary, the professors' concern was externalized through the historic review presented then: "among the priorities defended by the teaching staff are openings to four titular professors for four existing disciplines and, after PhDs graduated in an appropriate number, go back to the four nursing departments structure, as Escola Paulista de Enfermagem used to be"(2).
It is important to highlight that also in the seventies, the last religious director, probably influenced by the new feminine social role and due to her PhD in philosophy, was against the faculty federalization, for she knew, through her relatives who had political positions in the Federal Government, that it would be impossible for EPE to keep being a faculty if the federalization happened, in compliance with the Ministério da Educação (National Education Office) policy at the time
The eighties are marked by the Dictation period end. A perspective for political renovation was real, amplifying and spreading, to popular segments, the health related public policies control search. The Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS - Healthcare System) was created in 1988(1).
Hospital São Paulo Nursing Management is again performed by a professor in 1992.
In 1998, ten years after SUS creation, the perspective of implementing such system in the country was still small. After 20 years, it is possible to observe that after its creation advances did occur, although we still live in a country where the richer have access to privileged health and education services.
In the following year, the I Fórum Internacional de Enfermagem (1st International Nursing Forum) took place to celebrate the Nursing Graduation Course 60th anniversary, where the mentioned issues were debated.
CURRENT PERSPECTIVES
EPE has contributed, along the years, with the SUS consolidation, graduating professionals that comply with the System principles. It also meets the marketplace demands, currently graduating specialists in 19 different specialty areas.
The sensu stricto Post Graduation program, assessed with a 5 from CAPES (Higher Education Staff Improvement Coordination), graduates masters and PhDs according to the national demand. It complies with the solidarity principle assessed by CAPES. Its researchers maintain national and international exchange programs, and have 21 study and research groups registered at CNPq (National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development), either connected or not to the Nursing Post Graduation program, besides five extension projects.
The Acta Paulista de Enfermagem Magazine, listed on the main databases, is one of the best classified periodic magazines, according to CAPES assessment, uninterruptedly published since 1988.
However impossible for it to survive as a theme University, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, created in 1995, adhered to the government expansion program, amplifying, in 2005, the student graduations in different knowledge areas, and gradually becoming a plural University, with campi in different cities in São Paulo State: São Paulo, Santos, São José dos Campos, Diadema and Guarulhos.
Such perspective amplifies an important inter-disciplinary partnership, which brings benefits to our students graduation.
The new statute being studied will enable the Faculty to have administrative autonomy, which has been wanted since its federalization as an EPM department.
The ground where this Faculty was planted is fertile. Its principles are solid.
Its growth is due to the professors' staff, employees, and students' collective work, who believed in the continuous graduation of nurses to provide patient, family and community care, with a human approach based on the science principles evolution.
EPE, as well as other Nursing Faculties in our country, brings a considerable contribution to the profession along its history, facing the different moment challenges.
Graduation is developed with objectives that culminate in professionals able to perform with scientific, human, and ethical competences, in all different scenarios of the practice. The professors and students participation in national and international events presenting research results, teaching courses or speaking in congresses, and debating themes shows this Faculty varied performance area and its expansion.
Looking forward, we see the future bringing constant challenges, which will have a conscious, responsible, and enthusiastic response.
REFERENCES
- 1. Vianna LAC. Enfermagem: Da vida abnegada à auto-determinação profissional. Acta Paul Enf. 2000;13(Número Especial.Parte I):17-26.
- 2. Augusto M, Maranhão AMSA. Resenha histórica do Departamento de Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina. São Paulo. Anais. Jubileu de Ouro do Curso de Graduação em Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina. São Paulo, 1989.
- 3. Souza MF. O ensino de graduação de enfermagem do Departamento de Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina. [Trabalho apresentado no Jubileu de Ouro do Curso de Graduação em Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina, São Paulo, junho de 1989]
- 4. Ferraz NM. A formação de recursos humanos em enfermagem em face à lei do exercício profissional. [Trabalho apresentado no Jubileu de Ouro do Curso de Graduação em Enfermagem da Escola Paulista de Medicina, São Paulo, junho de 1989]
- 5. Barros ALBL. A evolução da assistência de enfermagem em cardiologia em São Paulo. Rev Soc Cardiol Estado de São Paulo.1996;6(2):5-9, Sup. A.
Paulista School of Nursing: a little bit of history
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
10 Mar 2010 -
Date of issue
2009
