Introduction:

Primary health care in Brazil is considered a priority. In 2013, "Mais Médicos Program" was created, providing in-service training and expanding the number of doctors in the country. Cuban cooperation, managed by the Pan American Health Organization, sent the largest number of professionals.

Objective:

Analyze the social representations of health counselors on "Mais Médicos Program", in municipalities in which doctors from Cuba cared to their population.

Methods:

Descriptive cross-sectional case study approached with qualitative methodology. The sample was intentional. It was conducted a work with 58 semi-structured interviews and the analysis was carried out using the free software Iramuteq with the lexical analysis technique.

Results:

Four groups of representations could be distinguished: on the functioning of the municipal health councils, on the representations of "Mais Médicos Program", on the care networks and on Brazilian and Cuban doctors. The study brings evidence of the application of a new model of care for counselors who objectified and anchored in the concept of nationality. The Cuban model incorporates characteristics of humanism, attributes that were not contained in the representations about local doctors.

Conclusions:

The social representations on "Mais Médicos Program" allude to an action that improves the quality of services, however, the literature on basic care still shows some problems of access and transit through the network of the health system.