From ‘More Doctors’ to the COVID-19 pandemic: dual denialism in the Brazilian medical corporation’s performance

Abstract

The essay analyzes the dynamics of corporate action of Brazilian medicine in the Covid-19 pandemic, from March 2020 to July 2021, from documents and institutional material of national medical entities, student organizations and collectives of physicians of national expression, as well as journalistic articles and publications of scientific literature on the subject. The period is marked by the politicization of the corporate agenda and the alignment with the denialist discourses of the government of Jair Bolsonaro. It is argued that this process is the result of a previous politicization: the clash against the More Doctors Program in the period 2013, the year of its launch, to 2019, when it was closed by the government. The two historical moments reveal a double denialism of the medical corporation, emphasizing weaknesses, contradictions and dilemmas of the crossroads of the profession, which will require internal and social dialogues, for new consensus of corporate identity and the professional project of medicine. The understanding of the intertwining, disputes and meanings of the dynamics and directions of the corporate action of medicine allow identifying structural problems of political roots that prevent further advances in the consolidation of the SUS.