Attraction and retention in the logic of human resources management: A study with physicians in the family health program (FHP) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

This work intends to identify and discuss, from the Human Resources Management perspective, the factors associated to attraction and retention of medical professionals in the Family Health Program  (FHP) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, aiming to understand the main factors considered by the doctors when choosing to work or not in the FHP. This study began with a literature review structured in three axes: the current organization of health in Brazil and the insertion of the PSF as a primary health care model; Human Resources management and its contextualization in the health area; and the doctor in the context of the Family Health Program, approached by the point of view of attraction and retention factors, the Sociology of Professions, the job market and the professional practice. It was possible to extract a group of subjects directly connected to attraction and fixation, which where grouped into five dimensions – individual factors; work organization; management; work conditions; and culture and identity. For the research, twenty-one doctors were interviewed – fifteen of them were participants of the Family Health Program and the other six worked in the support group to the Family Health Program’s team. The interview guide approached each of the abovementioned dimensions and the reasons that determined the professional choices made by the doctors during their careers. The data were analyzed and used to confront the perception of the doctors about each dimension with the factors they consider when making career-related choices. The results allow three main conclusions: the perception of the physicians is in conformity with what was found in the literature about the subject; ii) the factors that attract the doctors aren't necessarily the same ones which retain them; iii) there are divergent points between what the professionals consider relevant to their work and what actually determines their choices