THE EXPANSION OF BRAZILIAN MEDICAL EDUCATION AND THE CHALLENGES OF TRAINING IN PUBLIC HEALTH: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

The expansion of Brazilian medical education has intensified debates on the quality of medical training, the availability of practice settings, and the capacity of healthcare networks to meet the demands of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS). This study consists of a qualitative, theoretical-reflective narrative literature review aimed at discussing the challenges of Public Health training in Brazil in the context of the expansion of medical schools. The review was conducted between February and April 2026 through searches in the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), and Google Scholar databases. The search included freely available full-text scientific articles, institutional documents, legislation, technical reports, and reference works related to medical education, Public Health, Primary Health Care (PHC), medical curriculum, and teaching-service-community integration, published in Portuguese and English. A total of 27 potentially relevant publications were identified, of which 12 comprised the final analytical corpus. The findings were organized into six thematic axes: expansion of medical education, Public Health in the curriculum, Primary Health Care as a training setting, hidden curriculum, preceptorship, and perspectives for improving medical education. The study demonstrated that the quantitative expansion of medical schools and vacancies alone does not ensure educational quality. It is concluded that strengthening Public Health education requires curricular integration, greater recognition of Primary Health Care, faculty development, structured preceptorship, continuous evaluation of practice settings, and institutional commitment to the principles of the Brazilian Unified Health System.