The purpose of this study is to enlighten the function(s) of the ambulatory (non specialist medical public care unit) in the dynamics of corporative power relations and construction of identity of new therapist's occupation in biomedicine. To achieve our labor data were collected through open interviews and direct observations in two hospitals in Rio de Janeiro (Hospital Pedro Ernesto, Sao Francisco Xavier Medical Care) with 12 doctors. The ambulatory emerges as a negative and monotonous place in the speech of professionals in early career, where the diagnosis of new diseases is uncommon, preventing the young physician to access real knowledge and social status. It means also a rite of passage trainer of medical identity. Stygmatized by the frequency of patients from the lower strata of society, the ambulatory points to the relations of social and symbolic domination present among us.
ambulatory; contemporary western medicine; power relations; social theory