The difficulty in obtaining adherence by medical faculty members to curricular reform and related research has been a recurrent problem in Brazil, due to the non-professionalization of the faculty's role, complexity and diversity of teaching activities and scenarios in medical schools, precarious faculty contracts with teaching institutions, part-time teaching, insecurity, corporatism, and general resistance to change. This study aimed to describe the profile of medical faculty and analyze their expectations towards medical training and their role in planning the curriculum, with a view towards stimulating curricular reorientation, while promoting teaching "in and for" the Unified National Health System (SUS). Professors stated that organization and management issues in the university impede their personal involvement in the Teaching Project. Meanwhile, they acknowledged the need for changes in teaching and expressed interest in university-level teaching. In-depth reflection is needed on teaching practice in medicine in order for it to become a reference for dialogue and change in the traditional approaches to teaching in health.