Introduction:

professional upgrading aims at the permanent training and systematic updating of university graduates, the improvement of the performance of their professional and academic activities, as well as the enrichment of their cultural heritage.

Objective:

to characterize the main historical and theoretical tendencies of the process of improvement of Cuban health professionals.

Methods:

a systematic bibliographic review was carried out to investigate the contents of this topic; original articles and review articles published from 2000 to 2015 in Spanish and English were considered. The search was made in the SciELO and Google Academic databases from January to December 2018, the key words used were: “upgrading”, “professional upgrading”, “postgraduate upgrading”.

Development:

three periods of the postgraduate training process were established in their historical progression; the strategic intention of bringing health services to the entire population was highlighted under the principles of free and accessible access, the gradual introduction of advanced technologies and the perspective planning of training and development of human resources in undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Conclusions:

like any activity, postgraduate education changes and must be perfected in accordance with the development of society while transforming it, in order to meet its objectives of offering continuity and updating knowledge in health professionals.

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