Reflections on the National Curricular Guidelines of undergraduate medical courses based on the National Health Promotion Policy

Abstract The objective of this article is to analyze the National Curricular Guidelines of medical courses based on Foucauldian discourse analysis. This analysis goes even deeper under the scope of health promotion presented by the National Health Promotion Policy (PNPS), since it is closely related to a comprehensive care proposal. The new National Curricular Guidelines are in accordance with PNPS, since it aims at a general, human, critical, reflective and ethical education that is able to prepare medical students to work with social responsibility and commitment to advocate for citizenship and human dignity in different levels of care in the health-disease process. On the other hand, the analysis reveals that, although there is an attempt to place graduates as active subjects in their educational process, there is no sign of inclusion of these social agents in the creation of their educational practices.