Health profiles--Brazil 2006--changes and their causes.

Mailing address: Iseu Gus • Avenida Princesa Isabel, 395 – 90620-001 – Porto Alegre, RS Brazil E-mail: [email protected] Manuscript received June 7, 2006; revised manuscript received September 21, 2006; accepted October 5, 2006. For centuries medicine progressed very slowly1, and in the past fifty years its development has been “blindingly fast” and difficult to keep up with, and made the means of communication, especially IT, indispensable. At each step of this progression the health profile faced by medicine went through changes thus changing the medical reasoning. We could say that Health Profiles are changes in the main focus of the medical care as a consequence of the evolution of our civilization and of medicine itself.