This study aimed at understanding the social role played by Brazilian physical therapists by drawing on their practices. Empirical data included the recordings of 89 interviews with physical therapists, data from the Sao Paulo State First Census of Physical Therapists, and information on physical therapy undergraduate courses. The analysis showed that mainstream physical therapy is strongly linked to the healing model, of liberal ideology; training courses are mostly private and concentrated in the country's Southeast, richest region. Results sustain evidence of a fragmented professional practice, encouraged by the hegemonic model, but also of signs of conflict between two opposing concepts of health care. The hegemonic model takes the part for the whole, fragments body and knowledge, bears on liberalism, where health is taken as a commodity; health care services focus on illness and value specialization. The counter-hegemonic principles, while not denying the relevance of technical knowledge, value social and human dimensions of professional practice, focus on the person, aim at integration of services and support interdisciplinarity. The counter-hegemonic model tends to widen physical therapy practice beyond the clinic toward a humanized social role, in accordance with the national health system guidelines. It also allows for rethinking therapists current social place, offering parameters for reorientating the profession course of action.
Health systems; Physical therapy (Specialty); Professional role
