The beginnings and the development of nursing education in Brazil

Abstract

Nursing education history in Brazil was re-visited, beginning with the foundation of the Anna Nery School of Nursing in 1922, followed by the analysis of the teaching programs of 1923, 1926 and 1949, and of the national curriculum for Nursing education of 1962, 1972 and 1994. In spite of the fact that modern Nursing in Brazil was established to qualify nurses to work in public health, since the beginning they were trained in hospitals, with the systematic study of diseases, without giving priority to subjects linked to public health. Although the reformulation that resulted in the 1994 curriculum was committed to the construction of an education proposal that was non-hegemonic in Nursing, the subdivision in medical specialties was preserved, as a result of the adoption of the flexnerian model. The biomedical, individualized and hospital-based model that influenced Nursing education from it origins in Brazil is still present and Nursing education is not focused on the population needs, being therefore antagonistic to the presuppositions of Collective Health.