RETS - Rede Internacional de Educação de Técnicos em Saúde

December has come and with it we end another year of work at the RETS, in which we published four issues of the magazine and over 50 articles and 70 reports on our website, sent 16 electronic newsletters and posted countless messages on Twitter and, more recently, on Facebook. It is true that we still did not manage to achieve everything we have planned with the desired quality, but we are sure that, to some extent, we fulfilled our role to produce and disseminate to increasingly wider audience information relevant to the strengthening of the Network and of education and work of health technicians and international technical cooperation.

 It is also true that we will be together again in 2012, with a firm purpose of improving our working processes and, consequently, developing increasingly more interesting products to our readers, “without rushing, but also without wasting time”, as Portuguese writer José Saramago said. In this last issue of 2011, we go back to the topic of materials for the training of health technicians in an interview with Anakeila de Barros Stauffer, professor and researcher at the Joaquim Venâncio Health Polytechnic School (EPSJV/Fiocruz). Moreover, we highlight some important recent events – the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, the Summit of the United Nations (UN) on Noncommunicable Diseases and the Workshop on Human Resources for Health Information Systems –, whose debates ultimately have a direct or indirect impact on the education of health workers.

Under the “Network News” section, we share some of the important work that some institutions members of the RETS are developing in favor of public health, reiterating our invitation to all other members to also take advantage of our space to share experiences and achievements.

Happy reading!

RETS Executive Secretariat