Profissionais tradicionais de saúde e suas estratégias populares no combate a sinais e sintomas de doenças em Santarém-PA

Abstract

The Amazon is a tangle of ways of living, with different systems of identity, traditions and memories. We present initial reflections on subjects who hold traditional knowledge and practices in health in the Amazon region, specifically those born in the municipality of Santarém, Pará. We reflect on the continuity and (re)existence of non-biomedical knowledge made possible by Traditional Health Professionals (PTS) who keep alive a set of popular strategies to combat signs and symptoms of diseases. We also investigated in which spaces the PTS are located and what social functions they play in their communities. We used exploratory research, as it is characterized as a preliminary study for familiarization with the investigated topic. It was divided into four stages, the final stage being interviews with eleven traditional health professionals carried out between October 2018 and April 2019 in the city of Santarém, PA. Such professionals differ from health professionals because they use listening to a greater extent in their processes, as they understand the integrality of their patients. However, there is still a lot of stigma regarding the knowledge of these professionals and that this can be, although embryonic, an initiative capable of bringing the scientific knowledge of the academic community closer to the empirical knowledge of these curators.