Sucupira - A Platform for the Evaluation of Graduate Education in Brazil

et al. 2021

Preprint

Family and community medicine is a specialty dedicated to primary care, the cornerstone of effective health systems. Research capacity in primary care varies worldwide, and bibliographic databases such as MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science do not index most primary care research coming from Latin America. Our objective was to investigate the research themes of family and community physicians in Brazil, and to correlate the articles' research themes with their authors' trajectories in postgraduate education. For that, we compiled a national list of family and community physicians, retrieved their curricula from the Lattes Platform, compiled a list of journal articles, and obtained their keywords from LILACS and MEDLINE. Treating journal articles and their keywords as the two node types in a bipartite network, we derived research themes using the dual-projection algorithm, combining the Leiden algorithm with hierarchical clustering. We found two research themes to be the largest, most developed, and most central ones: human health and primary care. Authors with a master's or PhD in collective health (public health, epidemiology, and social sciences and humanities in health) were as likely as those with no postgraduate degree to publish articles on primary care. On the other hand, authors with a postgraduate degree in medicine were more likely to publish articles on human health. After discussing the findings in light of previous research and methodological aspects, we conclude there's a relative divide between primary care and clinical research, and the highlight policy implications.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research themes of family and community physicians in Brazil

Fontenelle

et al. 2021

Preprint

“…After compiling the list of family and community physicians, we obtained the Lattes Platform ID number by looking up the Lattes Platform using the physicians’ CPF numbers or names, and used this ID number to download the corresponding CVs in XML format in late December 2018. Data on the postgraduate courses were extracted from the Lattes XML files, and data entered manually by the physicians (instead of selecting from predefined lists) were verified by looking up the postgraduate programmes in the Sucupira Platform (the Brazilian information system on postgraduate programmes) 25 and searching the web for the monographs. We then obtained further data on the postgraduate programmes from the Sucupira Platform using postgraduate programme ID codes found in the Lattes CVs.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postgraduate education among family and community physicians in Brazil: theTrajetórias MFCproject

Fontenelle¹,

et al. 2020

Fam Med Com Health

ObjectiveOur objective was to describe the postgraduate education trajectories of family and community physicians in Brazil, where neither primary healthcare nor family and community medicine is recognised as a knowledge area for the purpose of research and postgraduate education (master’s and PhD degrees).DesignAn observational, exploratory study, using administrative data. A nationwide list of family and community physicians as of late November 2018 was compiled from multiple sources. Data on the mode of specialisation was obtained from the same sources and were correlated with data on master’s and PhD degrees, obtained from the curricula vitae on the Lattes Platform.SettingThis study was set in Brazil.Participants6238 family and community physicians (58.3% female), of whom 2795 had earned a specialist certificate (identified from the list of physicians certified by Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina de Família e Comunidade) and 3957 had completed medical residency (identified from SisCNRM, the national information system for medical residency).ResultsA master’s degree was held by 747 (12.0%) family and community physicians, and a PhD by 170 (2.7%); most degrees were in collective health (47.0% and 42%, respectively). Men were more likely than women to hold a master’s degree (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.24, 95% uncertainty interval (UI) 1.07–1.45) and even more likely to a hold PhD (aOR 1.86, 95% UI 1.35–2.59). Family and community physicians were also less likely to hold a PhD degree if their master’s degree was professional (oriented towards jobs outside academia) instead of academic (aOR 0.15, 95% UI 0.05–0.39) or in some area other than collective health or medicine (aOR 0.41, 95% UI 0.21–0.78, compared with a master’s degree in collective health). The postgraduate degree was more likely to precede specialisation for family and community physicians specialising through certification (master’s degree 39.9%, PhD 33%) than through medical residency (master’s degree 9.1%, PhD 6%).ConclusionFamily and community physicians in Brazil increasingly earn academic and professional master’s and PhD degrees, with an emphasis on collective health, even though women seemingly face barriers to advance their education. The consequences of different postgraduate trajectories should be critically examined.

“…After extracting data on the postgraduate courses from the Lattes XML files, we hand checked each entry to make sure the data corresponded to actual postgraduate programs and each entry with a postgraduate program included the corresponding ID code. This hand checking included looking up the postgraduate programs in the Sucupira Platform (the Brazilian information system on postgraduate programs) 25 and searching the Web for the monographs (titles are often included in the Lattes CV, and monographs are often publicly available). Then we obtained further data on the postgraduate programs from the Sucupira Platform, by scraping their web pages corresponding to each postgraduate program.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postgraduate education among family and community physicians in Brazil: theTrajetórias MFCproject

Fontenelle

et al. 2019

Preprint

Neither primary health care or family and community medicine are recognized as knowledge areas in Brazil, for the purpose of postgraduate education (master's, Ph.D.) or research. Our objective was to describe the postgraduate education trajectories of family and community physicians in Brazil. In this observational, exploratory study, we used data from SBMFC and SisCNRM to compile the list of physicians and community physicians, and then downloaded their curricula vitae from the Lattes Platform, verifying all data for consistency. A master's degree was held by one in eight, and a Ph.D., by one in forty; most degrees were in collective health. Women (versus men) were less likely to hold master's degrees, and even less likely to hold Ph.D. degrees. Professional (versus academic) master's degrees and those in other areas (versus in medicine or collective health) were also associated with lower probability of obtaining a Ph.D. degree. Certified specialists (versus those with a medical residency) with a postgraduate degree were more likely to have earned it before becoming family and community physicians. We suggest that researchers in public health critically examine the relative benefits of different postgraduate trajectories for the professional performance of family and community physicians.