The definition of a university hospital presupposes the integration of teaching, research and healthcare. Considering these activities constituent parts of university hospitals’ missions, an analysis was made from the administrators’ viewpoint of their place in these institutions at their founding and in the present day. Semi-structured interviews were held with the administrators of 13 of the 31 general hospitals run at Brazil’s federal universities. Parallel to this, official information was gathered and analyzed from the 31 university hospitals’ websites. Using a content analysis technique, it was found that although most of the university hospitals state that research is one of their missions, alongside teaching and healthcare, in practice teaching and healthcare take precedence.
university hospitals; teaching; research; healthcare; institutional missions