Professionals of Health, Experts of Pain: Doctors and Repression under Military Brazil

During the Brazilian military rule (1964-1985), counterinsurgency agencies apprehended and tortured tens of thousands of political activists suspected of “subversive conduct.” Trained interrogators inflicted the physical and psychological pain, but it was medical professionals who played an essential role in systemizing and legitimizing state-sponsored repression. Doctors examined detainees to determine their “weak points.” They monitored victims during prolonged torture interrogations. And they falsified medical reports to conceal evidence of abuse or extralegal executions. Yet while some doctors violated medical ethics in the name of national security, others suffered the brunt of regime’s repression when vehemently opposing human rights abuses and advocating public health reforms.
This paper follows the conflicting paths doctors undertook in military Brazil. First, it traces a process of politicization within the medical community prior to the 1964 coup d'état. Against the backdrop of social unrest and President Goulart’s attempts for large-scale reforms, essays in medical journals illuminate heated debates concerning the dire health conditions in the country, national healthcare, and medical morality. An analysis of reports produced by intelligence agencies in following years reveal how the regime’s escalating repression further intensified the rift. After the military ousted “Marxist” professors of medicine and suppressed “subversive” organized doctors, the medical sector was deeply polarized. The paper concludes with examining the sector’s reconvergence after redemocratization, when Brazil’s medical councils—responsible for supervising professional and ethical practice—conducted investigations against more than 100 doctors for violating codes of ethics under the authoritarian rule.
By unfolding the history of the embattled medical community and its complex relationships with the regime, the paper not only considers how ideological and political divergences influenced the conduct of medical practitioners, but may also elucidates other sociopolitical schisms dividing the Brazilian society prior to, and during the military rule.