Objective:

To reflect on the contributions of the student movement to the Brazilian sanitary reform, assuming its historical-dialectical aspects and the contemporary traits.

Content synthesis:

Faced with the adverse times we live in and the effects of an unfinished health reform, student entities and other student organizations, as well as the projects and initiatives that promote changes in health education, such as scientific initiation, university extension, National Program for Reorientation of Professional Training in Health, Work Education Program, Experiences and Internships in the Reality of the Unified Health System and multi-professional residencies, represent a stimulus to critical and social thinking, and also encourage student activism in Brazil as a symbol of the defense on the effectiveness of the Unified Health System (UHS) as a political and social project that resists against the disarticulation of public policies in this country.

Conclusions:

We acknowledge the potential of all these training initiatives, whether institutionalized or not, to contribute to the realization of UHS, since they promote students' autonomy and protagonism towards the transformation of their social reality.

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