Medicina do Trabalho

1105

Labor Medicine: sub-science or subserviency?
An epistemological approach

Luiz Carlos Fadel de Vasconcellos
Wanderlei Antonio Pignati 2

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Abstract This article discusses a disquieting issue in the field of workers’ health, the mission of the labor physician in the context of a change in the model of public politics with regard to the relation health and work that began with the establishment of the new Unified Health System in
Brazil. The paper focuses on epistemological questions like Medicine being or not a science and analyzes the mission of Labor Medicine on the basis of a short historical analysis of its development and its appropriation by the production systems and institutional trajectory since the appearance of the first factory physician. The study comes to the conclusion that Labor Medicine is not on a level with the ethical and scientific principles traditionally expected from Medicine and its special fields, understanding this branch of medicine as a practice subordinated to other hegemonic and not scientific variables. Finally, this article remits to the debate about the contradictions involving the construction of the field of workers’ health in Brazil.
Key words Labor Medicine, Workers’ health,
Medical science
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Escola Nacional de Saúde
Pública, Fiocruz. Rua
Leopoldo Bulhões 1480,
Manguinhos. 21041-210
Rio de Janeiro RJ. [e-mail] 2
Universidade Federal do
Mato Grosso.

Resumo O artigo traz ao debate um tema inquietante na área de saúde do trabalhador, qual seja, o papel do médico do trabalho, no contexto de uma mudança de paradigma das políticas dirigidas às relações saúde-trabalho, a partir do advento do
Sistema Único de Saúde. Buscando ater-se às questões epistemológicas de ser ou não a medicina uma ciência, analisa-se o papel da Medicina do Trabalho neste contexto, dentro de uma breve análise histórica de seu desenvolvimento, sua apropriação pela lógica dos sistemas produtivos e sua