{"id":421680,"date":"2022-01-19T13:41:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T16:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=421680"},"modified":"2022-01-19T13:41:34","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T16:41:34","slug":"health-in-the-foreground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/health-in-the-foreground\/","title":{"rendered":"Health in the foreground"},"content":{"rendered":"

Physician Helena Lemos Petta first took an interest in health care when, aged 16, she watched The plague<\/em>, a movie adapted from the book of the same name by Albert Camus (1913\u20131960). The story follows a doctor trying to contain an epidemic that devastates the city of Oran in Algeria. “I was captivated by the importance it placed on public health and health professionals, and how powerful the theme is when portrayed in audiovisual media,” recalls Petta, who has been working on television series related to public health since 2009 and has more recently taken her first steps in the film industry.<\/p>\n

She and her sister Ana Petta jointly directed the documentary Quando falta o ar<\/em> (When the air runs out), a collection of stories about the current pandemic in different regions of Brazil. \u201cWe went looking for characters who were on the front lines in health care, highlighting the essential role women have played in this battle,\u201d explains Petta. Filming took place in September and December 2020, following a number of health care workers, including a family doctor working at a prison in Salvador, Bahia, and another from the Baniwa ethnic group working with riverside communities in the city of Castanhal, Par\u00e1.<\/p>\n

The documentary also examines the day-to-day operations of a health center in Morro da Concei\u00e7\u00e3o, a neighborhood in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, and the intensive care units at Hospital das Cl\u00ednicas in S\u00e3o Paulo. \u201cICUs are often stereotyped in television and film\u2014the health care professionals always seem to be racing against time,\u201d says Petta, who tried to show the less frenetic side. \u201cThere is nursing care, bathing patients in bed, shaving or even braiding their hair,\u201d she explains. The film is scheduled for release at the end of this year.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reproduction<\/span><\/a>Petta earned her medical degree from Santa Casa de S\u00e3o Paulo and started working at a health center in Jardim Santa L\u00facia, Campinas, in 2008 during her residency in infectology. It was during this period that she realized the dramatic potential of the stories she was witnessing, which would later serve as inspiration for the script of Unidade b\u00e1sica<\/em> (Health center), a series aired on Universal TV and streamed online. \u201cI was talking to my sister, who at the time was working on a series about day-to-day life in a police station in S\u00e3o Paulo, and we had the idea of producing something similar but in public health,\u201d recalls Petta, who studied her master’s degree in public health at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ). They then began interviewing doctors, nurses, and community health workers. \u201cWe wanted to emphasize that this is a team effort,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Dr. Paulo, the protagonist of the series played by Caco Ciocler, is a doctor whose work goes beyond consultations and prescriptions. \u201cThese health centers are close to where people live\u2014they bear witness to the daily lives of their patients,\u201d he says. The first season is based primarily on public health issues. The second focuses on themes such as racism, women’s reproductive rights, femicide, and transphobia. The third season, scheduled to air in the first half of 2022, is about the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Based on her experience of creating and producing the series in partnership with screenwriter Newton Cannito, Petta studied a doctorate in preventive medicine at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP), which she completed in 2018. \u201cIn my thesis, I analyzed the potential of the mass media to communicate about public health and primary care,\u201d she explains. Her work resulted in the book Unidade B\u00e1sica:<\/em> A sa\u00fade p\u00fablica na TV <\/em>(Health center: public health on TV; Hucitec, 2020).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doctor and TV series creator directs her first feature-length film about the pandemic","protected":false},"author":678,"featured_media":420885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1204],"tags":[216,260],"coauthors":[2477],"class_list":["post-421680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","tag-film","tag-public-health","keywords-coronavirus-en","keywords-covid-19-en","keywords-pandemic","keywords-sars-cov-2-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421681,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421680\/revisions\/421681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421680"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=421680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}