The Professionalisation Project for Nurse Practitioners represents the Ministry of Health's main educational policy for such labour force since 2000. Granted this condition, the analytical effort of this article is to understand Profae as a social policy formulated and implemented by management precepts and prescriptions typical of the neoliberal capitalist State. This is the main objetive of this paper. Firstly, the social visibility of Profae - considered as a project geared towards the educational training of nurse practitioners - will be examined. After that, the dilemmas that surround the formation of these professionals in Brazil will be briefly presented, followed by a discussion on the actual possibility of Profae serving as an instrument to revert the deficiencies in this formation. This allows us to seek the mediation between Profae and the typification imposed on the current neoliberal policies, as well as the privatisation forms of public funds, seen as implicit mechanisms for their financing. Finally, the political and economic instrumentality of Profae, beyond its aspect of a mere professionalisation project for nurse practitioners, is examined.
Profae; professional qualification; neoliberal State