Mackenzie Alphaville will have a medical course in 2025 – 10/02/2024 – Education

Mackenzie Presbyterian University will launch, in 2025, its first undergraduate course in medicine, which will be at the Alphaville unit, in Barueri (Greater São Paulo). The authorization from the Ministry of Education (MEC), for the opening of 60 vacancies, was published in the Official Gazette of the Union last Friday (26).

The entrance exam for the new course will be separate from the others, as he told Sheet the rector of the university, Marco Tullio de Castro Vasconcelos. The notice with information about the selection process will be published this Thursday (3), when registrations will open (cost of R$250). The first phase, with tests, takes place on November 14th, and the second, with interviews, on the 28th and 29th of the same month.

The dean estimates that the entrance exam will receive between 1,200 and 1,500 applications, which would give a competition of 20 to 25 candidates per place. The monthly fee will be R$11,000.

Vasconcelos says that a degree in medicine “was an old dream” of the university, which was founded 52 years ago and has more tradition in engineering and law courses.

Ten years ago, Mackenzie unsuccessfully tried to obtain authorization from the MEC to open the medicine course. After that, for a period of five years, between 2018 and 2023, the MEC interrupted authorizations for courses and new vacancies in medicine.

The objective was to control the quality of medical training in the country. Last year, however, the Minister of Education, Camilo Santana, when ending this moratorium, stated that the measure had not been successful, because, in practice, several courses had to be authorized after court decisions favorable to colleges.

Since then, it has been decided that new medical courses should follow criteria from the Mais Médicos Program, which selects regions lacking health professionals to allow the opening of colleges and also to increase the number of vacancies in existing ones. In addition, the college must offer compensation for the SUS, scholarships for students and implement medical residency programs.

Mackenzie is among the institutions that went to court in order to obtain authorization to submit the project for the new medicine course to the MEC – the legal process began in 2022, and the university requested the opening of 120 places.

The MEC ordinance that authorized the opening of the course – with 60 places and not 120 – mentions that the authorization is given in compliance with a court decision.

According to the dean, however, the course is also already suited to the criteria of the Mais Médicos Program, especially due to the fact that it is based in the municipality of Barueri, and not in São Paulo, where Mackenzie’s main campus is located (in the neighborhood Higienópolis, in the central region of the capital).

The MEC ordinance even makes it clear that the authorization is valid exclusively for the address of Mackenzie de Alphaville, in Barueri.

The dean’s emphasis on this adaptation to the Mais Médicos criteria is especially justified because, in June, the Federal Supreme Court validated the decision to link the opening of medical courses and vacancies to the federal government program.

“The location meets this MEC criteria and is also strategic for Mackenzie, which wants to expand the offer of courses in Alphaville”, says the dean. “It is a booming region for growth, with large business conglomerates, as well as residential condominiums, many of which were launched in recent years”, he states.

The university, according to the rector, already has agreements signed with four municipalities in the region, for partnerships between the medical school and the SUS – in addition to Barueri, there are agreements with Santana do Parnaíba, Osasco and Carapicuíba. The idea is for students to undertake internships and medical residency in the health network of these cities.

On the Alphaville campus, with around 700 thousand m²there is a school with around 3,300 students from kindergarten, primary and secondary education, in addition to the university part, with degrees in law, administration, computer science and information systems – there are more than 1,000 students on these courses.

For the medical course facilities, including the expansion of the building, the construction of laboratories and the purchase of equipment, approximately R$42 million were invested in the last two years, according to the dean.

The Higienópolis campus already has the Center for Biological and Health Sciences, founded in 2006, with courses in biological sciences, pharmacy, physiotherapy, nutrition, gastronomy and psychology. For now, there are no plans to transfer these degrees to Alphaville, but new courses should be opened at this unit, in addition to medicine.

In Curitiba, there is a medical course at the Faculdade Evangélica Mackenzie do Paraná (Fempar). Despite belonging to the same sponsor, Instituto Presbiteriano Mackenzie, Fempar is not linked to Mackenzie in São Paulo, which, in addition to Higienópolis and Alphaville, also has a campus in Campinas (interior of SP).