Welcome

We are glad you are here

A very warm welcome to
Escola de Pacientes

From today you are part of a group that, since 2016, has been bringing health education into SUS — and that has already published 42 papers, received 12 recognitions, and held 34,026 consultations. None of this happened without new people arriving. Now it is your turn.

Release the confetti again

Your first steps

Tick items as you complete them — it is saved in this browser, just to help you stay organized.

• fingerprintORCIDYour academic identifier, forever
• articleLattesThe official Brazilian CV
• schoolGoogle ScholarThe public showcase of your output
• folder_openGoogle DriveWhere the group's materials are kept
• hubNúcleo EPRequest your access from the coordination

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What you will go through

The path every member takes in the group.

1. waving_handWelcomeYou are here
2. menu_bookTrainingScientific method and the group's tools
3. rocket_launchFirst activityYour actual entry into a project
4. workspace_premiumFirst articleThe publication that carries your name

If you have never taken part in a research group, this page was written for you. It is organized in steps, in the order things really happen: first understanding where you have landed, then getting your access ready, then understanding how the group works — and only then the types of work and the writing.

You don't need to read everything today. Read Steps 1 and 2, do what Step 3 asks, and come back to the others when your turn comes. Nobody here expects you to know any of this on day one — everyone in the group started exactly where you are now.

STEP 1 — WHERE YOU HAVE LANDED

🏛️ ABOUT THE GROUP

Escola de Pacientes is an academic activity group — teaching, research, and outreach — active since 2016, affiliated with UnB and the SES-DF network, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Estêvão Cubas Rolim. In practice, the group does two interconnected things: it brings health education to SUS patients and professionals, and it turns that experience into scientific work.

Meet the team, the projects, and the portals by audience: Patients, Students, Researchers, and Professionals.

📘 MEMBER MANUAL

This is the most important document for newcomers: it explains, calmly and in detail, how Escola de Pacientes works day to day. If you only have time for one reading, make it this one.

Prefer to open it in another tab? Member manual

🤖 SANTA-IA — ASK QUESTIONS AT ANY HOUR

Have a silly question and don't want to bother anyone? There is no such thing as a silly question, but there is such a thing as hurry: SANTA-IA is the group's artificial intelligence assistant and answers right away, based on Escola de Pacientes information.

STEP 2 — THE WORLD OF RESEARCH IN 5 MINUTES

Before any tool or deadline, it is worth understanding the vocabulary. Almost everyone who arrives gets stuck not for lack of ability, but because the people around them use words nobody stopped to explain. Here they are.

🔤 THE VOCABULARY YOU WILL HEAR

• Research — investigating a question in an organized and documented way, so that someone else can check the path you took. That is what it comes down to: a clear question, an explicit method, an honest result.
• Scientific article — the text that presents a complete study. It is the most valued output and the one that takes the longest.
• Journal (or scientific periodical) — the publication where articles are released. "Publishing in a journal" means having your article accepted by it.
• Peer review — before accepting, the journal sends your text to other researchers, who evaluate it and request corrections. That is why it takes time — and it is precisely why a published article has value.
• Conference — an event where work is presented, usually in a short format. It is almost always the first experience for newcomers to the group.
• Abstract — the short version of a work, sent to conferences. This is probably where you will start.
• Co-authorship — having your name on the list of authors of the work. It depends on what you actually delivered (more on this in Step 4).
• DOI — a kind of "ID number" for the article: a code that always leads to it, even if the journal's website changes.
• ISSN — the code that identifies the journal (not the article).
• Call for proposals (edital) — a public call with a deadline, for submitting work, competing for an award, or applying for a scholarship. A good part of the group's rhythm is set by them.
• Primary Care — the gateway to SUS: UBS, family health, day-to-day care. It is the field of most of our work.
• Master Table — the official list of the group's works. Until a topic enters it, it is not yet an official work.
• IMRaD — the standard structure of an article: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Detailed in Step 6.
• PICO — a way to organize a research question into four parts: population, intervention, comparison, and outcome (the result you want to measure).
• Screening — reading titles and abstracts of many articles to separate those that enter the study from those that don't. It is usually the first technical task for newcomers.
• Extraction — after screening, copying from each selected article the data that will be compared.

🎯 WHY THIS IS WORTH YOUR TIME

Taking part in research as an undergraduate changes your CV and your mind. In practice, you leave here with published work under your name, real experience of the scientific method, conference presentations, and a CV that carries weight in selection processes, scholarships, and residency applications. And you learn to read an article with healthy skepticism — which serves you for the rest of your professional life, even if you never write another one.

STEP 3 — YOUR FIRST WEEK: GET YOUR ACCESS READY

This is the only step that asks for immediate action. There are five items — the same ones as in the checklist at the top of this page. Until they are ready, you cannot receive tasks or appear as an author anywhere.

🔑 NÚCLEO EP — REQUEST YOUR ACCESS ON DAY ONE

Núcleo EP is Escola de Pacientes' own system, and it is where your life in the group happens: projects, deadlines, who is responsible for each task, and open academic opportunities — calls for proposals, awards, and conferences — all in one place. It replaced the loose spreadsheets and Google Classroom, which the group no longer uses. If someone tells you to look for tasks in Classroom, that is outdated information.

How to request your access: there is no public sign-up — accounts are created by the coordination, one by one. So this is a step that depends on you giving the first signal:

• Step 1 — Request access: talk to the coordination or the professor (on the group's WhatsApp is fine) and say you have just joined and need access to Núcleo EP.
• Step 2 — Give your email: login is by email and password, so say which email you use day to day — that is where the account will be created. Use the same email as your Google Drive, so as not to mix them up.
• Step 3 — Log in and look at your area: the first time you log in, go to "My area". It is your screen — it shows what is yours, what is overdue, what is due this week, and the next step for each project you take part in.
• Step 4 — Build the habit: open Núcleo EP at the start of each week. If in doubt about a deadline, what counts is what is registered and dated there.

Don't wait to be called: until your access is granted, you cannot see the group's deadlines. Asking takes a minute and is what unlocks everything else.

🪪 THE THREE ACADEMIC ACCOUNTS — WHAT EACH ONE IS FOR

Every researcher keeps three profiles, and they are not the same thing. Lattes is the official Brazilian CV, required by calls for proposals and scholarships. ORCID is a number that identifies you forever, in any country and journal, even if you change your name, email, or institution. Google Scholar is the public showcase: it is where people find and cite your work.

Create all three now, even empty. It seems pointless to have a CV with nothing in it — but when your first publication comes out, you only need to add one line, instead of figuring all this out with a deadline running.

🆔 CREATING AND SETTING UP ORCID — STEP BY STEP

• Step 1 — Create the account: go to orcid.org, click "Sign in / Register" and then "Register now".
• Step 2 — Choose the email carefully: use an email you will keep for years. Institutional email expires when you graduate — if you use your UnB one, also register a personal email as a backup, under "Account settings → Emails". Losing access to the registered email is the most common problem with ORCID.
• Step 3 — Set the visibility: when creating it, choose to make the record public ("Everyone"). A private ORCID does not serve its purpose of identifying you in publications.
• Step 4 — Confirm: verify the registration through the link sent to your email.
• Step 5 — Fill in your affiliation: under "Employment" and "Education and qualifications", enter the University of Brasília and your status (undergraduate, program, term).
• Step 6 — Add publications without typing everything: under "Works", use "Add works → Search & link" and choose the database (Crossref is the most complete for articles with a DOI). You can also paste the DOI under "Add works → Add DOI" — the data fills in automatically.
• Step 7 — Keep your iD: it has the format 0000-0000-0000-0000. Write it down and use it in every article, abstract, and call-for-proposals submission. Many journals already require each author's ORCID at submission.

🎓 CREATING AND SETTING UP GOOGLE SCHOLAR — STEP BY STEP

• Step 1 — Open the profile: go to scholar.google.com with your Google account and click "My profile" at the top left.
• Step 2 — Fill in the details: full name (the way you sign articles), affiliation — "Universidade de Brasília" — and areas of interest. In the email field, use your institutional email (@aluno.unb.br or @unb.br): it is what makes your profile appear in Scholar searches.
• Step 3 — Select your articles: Scholar shows groups of works with names similar to yours. Check them one by one before adding — people with the same name are common, and another person's article on your profile is an error that is hard to notice later.
• Step 4 — Choose how to update: prefer "Send updates by email for review" instead of automatic updating. That way you approve each addition and prevent works by people with the same name from being added on their own.
• Step 5 — Make the profile public: tick "Make my profile public". Without this, nobody finds you — and that is exactly the purpose of the tool.
• Step 6 — Confirm the institutional email: verify through the link you receive. Only after this confirmation is the profile indexed in searches.
• Step 7 — Add what is missing: if one of your articles doesn't show up on its own, use "+ → Add article manually" and fill in the data exactly as it appears on the journal's website.

After creating all three, link them together: put your ORCID and Google Scholar links in your email signature and in your Lattes. That way anyone — and any call-for-proposals reviewer — reaches your output with one click.

The screens of these tools change from time to time. If a button's name is different, look for the function described in the step — the order of the steps usually stays the same. If you get stuck at any point, ask the group or SANTA-IA.

🧰 THE EVERYDAY TOOLS

There is no mandatory tool for everything: it varies by project, and if the professor indicates a specific one, follow that guidance. In general the group uses Google Drive to organize files, Google Docs to write together, and Núcleo EP for deadlines and tasks. Beyond these, two categories appear in almost every work:

• Zotero or Mendeley — store your references and generate the finished citation list. You can use either one; what matters is following, in the end, the style required by the call for proposals or the journal.

STEP 4 — HOW THE GROUP WORKS DAY TO DAY

📅 WHERE YOUR TASKS ARE

Núcleo EP is the single source of truth for tasks and deadlines: when you log in, you see what is yours, what is due, and the next step for each project. WhatsApp and email are for notices and alerts — if there is a discrepancy, what is registered and dated in the system prevails.

🧩 HOW A TOPIC BECOMES OFFICIAL WORK

• Who decides the topic: the professor defines the central topics, and you may suggest complementary ones. The proposal must fit the project and be validated by the coordination, which has the final say.
• When it becomes official: the rhythm is set by conference and call-for-proposals deadlines. The work only becomes official — generating points and the right to co-authorship — when it enters the Master Table. From then on, topics are distributed, in groups or individually, and the routine alternates between collective checkpoints, writing in Google Docs, and tracking deadlines in Núcleo EP.

🤝 THE DECISION IS COLLECTIVE, THE DELIVERY IS INDIVIDUAL

Planning and deadlines are agreed on as a group, but your delivery commitment is personal: you complete the technical tasks of your role — screening, extraction, or writing, for example. Since scoring is individual, your name on the work depends on your specific delivery. In practice, this protects you: your recognition is not harmed if someone else is late.

🏅 SCORING AND CO-AUTHORSHIP

Your score is updated constantly by the professor, who proactively sends the statement by private WhatsApp — and you can ask the professor or the coordination for your status whenever you like. Points come from deliverables registered in Núcleo EP, attendance at checkpoints, and participation in meeting minutes. These points are what secure your place in co-authorship.

STEP 5 — TYPES OF WORK, FROM THE SIMPLEST TO THE MOST COMPLETE

The formats below are in order of effort: the first ones are where you start, the last ones take months. You don't need to master them all — you need to know which one your work fits.

📊 THE FORMATS

• Simple abstract — a short text, for conferences and events. It is the most common entry point.
• Expanded abstract — a detailed version, 3 to 5 pages, with references and a preliminary analysis. It works as a "mini-article".
• Experience report — describes a practical experience, such as an Escola de Pacientes activity, reflecting on the team's challenges and lessons learned.
• Case report — describes a specific clinical case in detail, usually because it is rare or because its management teaches something.
• Scoping review — maps the main concepts of a topic and shows where studies are still lacking. It is broader than a systematic review.
• Systematic review — gathers and analyzes the research already published on a specific question, with a rigorous and transparent method, to answer that question with strong evidence.
• Full paper — the deepest and most definitive output, made for publication in a scientific journal.

🧭 WHICH ONE IS YOURS

Let your question choose the format: I want to present at a conference → simple or expanded abstract · I want to map a broad topic → scoping review · I want to answer a specific question with strong evidence → systematic review · I want to show a practice that worked → experience report · I want to describe a clinical case → case report.

STEP 6 — HOW A PAPER IS WRITTEN

🧱 THE STRUCTURE OF AN ARTICLE

Almost every article follows IMRaD, four blocks in the same order: Introduction (why this study exists), Methods (what you did, in enough detail for someone to repeat it), Results (what you found, without interpreting) and Discussion (what it means and how it relates to what was already known). The conclusion may close the discussion or become its own section, depending on what the journal asks.

🔄 FROM IDEA TO PUBLICATION

The path starts with the professor defining the topic, almost always tied to Primary Care, accompanied by a short writing guide. Production happens alone or in a group, with follow-up through checkpoints and the tasks registered in Núcleo EP. Review is continuous — by peers and the professor — and, at the end, everyone reviews the whole material before submission. The more you contribute along the way, the greater your participation as an author. The group's templates, checklists, and sample articles are in the project's Google Drive, released as the work advances.

📖 HOW TO READ AND KEEP WHAT YOU READ

Reading an article without taking notes is lost work: two weeks from now you will reread everything. The group uses a standard highlighting format — PICO, method, main results, limitations, and conclusion — that lets you write later without reopening the whole article. The material read is organized in the project's citation bank, and the rule when reusing it is simple: read, understand, and rewrite in your own words, always citing the source. Never copy and paste.

• Where to find references — where to look for articles
• Citation bank — how the group organizes what it has already read
• Rayyan — literature screening — step-by-step guide to screening
• Participatory research (CBPR) — the approach used in some of the projects

🎬 NOTEBOOK LM — AN AI TO STUDY YOUR ARTICLES

📐 STANDARDS AND REFERENCE GUIDES

Two different things: the ABNT standards say how to format citations and references; the international guidelines say what must be included in each type of study. Use the guideline for your study type from the start, as a roadmap for the work — many journals ask for the completed checklist along with the submission, and those who followed it from the beginning deliver it ready.

• EQUATOR Network — start here: an index of guidelines by study type
• PRISMA — systematic review and scoping review
• Cochrane Handbook — systematic reviews, chapter by chapter
• JBI Manual — scoping reviews and other syntheses
• CARE — case report
• COREQ — qualitative research
• STROBE — estudos observacionais
• ABNT standards — PUC-SP guide — citations and references
• ABNT — compound names and foreign surnames) — the cases that cause doubt

🔎 WHERE TO FIND ARTICLES

STEP 7 — ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: WHAT IS ALLOWED AND WHAT IS NOT

AI is welcome as support and forbidden as a substitute. The group's rule fits in one sentence: AI suggests, you check and sign off — with human review of 100% of suggestions.

• Allowed: correcting grammar, suggesting synonyms, formatting references, summarizing articles for you to study, explaining difficult passages, and organizing table data.
• Not allowed: generating the final text to copy and paste, writing the conclusions for you, or creating content without a basis in real data.
• Never for searching the literature: AI models invent references that look real. Every cited source must be checked by you in the original document.
• Transparency: declare the use of AI in the work whenever it helps draft parts of the text, analyze data, or translate technical terms.

STEP 8 — AFTER THE WORK IS PUBLISHED

This step is for a few months from now — when your first publication comes out. Save the address and come back here when the time comes.

📋 WHAT TO NOTE DOWN AS SOON AS THE ARTICLE COMES OUT

Copy from the journal's website, exactly as it appears there: final title, journal name, year, volume, issue, and pages (or e-location), DOI, and ISSN. Also check the order and spelling of the authors' names.

📄 ENTERING THE PUBLICATION IN LATTES

In Lattes, go to Production → Articles published in full and fill in the data you noted down: ISSN, year, volume and issue, pages or e-location, keywords, and fields of knowledge. Then just save. Use the reference published by the journal as a checklist — it is not pasted into Lattes, but it avoids filling-in errors.

This is a ready-made reference, from an article by the group itself — note where the journal, year, volume, e-location, and DOI appear: Rolim, E. C., Campos, A. C. M., Lima, E. da S., & Oliveira, J. L. A. de. (2025). O canal YouTube da Escola de Pacientes DF como estratégia digital de educação permanente em saúde: análise documental e indicadores de uso. Brazilian Journal of Development, 11(12), e84839. https://doi.org/10.34117/bjdv11n12-087

🗂️ PERSONAL ORGANIZATION

• Keep one folder per article in Drive, with the final PDF, the proof of publication, and the DOI page.
• Update your Lattes as soon as each work comes out, or at most once per semester. Left to pile up, it becomes rework; done little by little, it takes minutes.
• Check your email, including SPAM: the publication confirmation arrives there and is easily lost.

STEP 9 — QUICK QUESTIONS

• Where do I see what I have to do? In Núcleo EP. WhatsApp is for alerts; in case of a discrepancy, what is registered and dated in the system prevails.
• Can I choose my topic? You can propose one. The final decision is the professor's, and the topic enters the flow when it fits conference and call-for-proposals deadlines.
• How do I become a co-author? By delivering: tasks registered in Núcleo EP, attendance at checkpoints, and participation in meeting minutes generate points, and points secure your place in co-authorship.
• Do I need to know everything about methods before I start? No. Almost everyone starts with article screening and learns the rest along the way, with the study-type guideline at hand.
• I'm stuck and don't know who to ask. Ask the group, the coordination, or SANTA-IA. Asking early is always cheaper than redoing later.