Sérgio Arouca at the UNICAMP School of Medical Sciences

Abstract

This work recovers the passage of the public health physician and university professor Antônio Sérgio da  Silva Arouca through the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), between 1967 and 1975, through the  study of three important documents kept in this  institution, namely, his Functional Life File, the Commemorative Magazine of the 25th anniversary of  the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, where his statement  is included, and the Final Report of the “Octávio Ianni” Truth and Memory Commission. At the UNICAMP’s  Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, he found a favorable environment to act according to his convictions. He joined the discipline of Social Sciences Applied to Medicine, whose theoretical content dialogued with extramural actions developed by  students in poor neighborhoods of the city, in order  to give them the opportunity to recognize the  importance and influence of social factors on the  health status of individuals and populations. This  experience probably had a great influence on the  young professor who, years later, would produce a  thesis of extreme relevance for the formulation and  consolidation of Brazilian Public Health, and preside  over the 8th National Health Conference, which  established the bases for the Unified Health System.