The increasing complexity of organized medical care requires that the field of hospital and health systems administration be included in medical curricula as a means of training professionals to do research, analyze and determine the community's health needs, obtain and efficiently use resources for meeting them, and promote activities that contribute to the community's wellbeing. With this end in view, the Polyclinic Hospital of the School of Medicine, University of São Paulo (Brasil) has instituted the Program of Advanced Studies in Hospital and Health Systems Administration (PROAHSA) which endeavors, during the medical residency, to complement the training of recently graduated physicians by providing the conditions they need to develop into health service administrators. In this two-year program, the resident physician acquires direct knowledge of the services rendered by the health organization, familiarizes himself with its purposes and problems, gains insight into its dynamics, and exercises his own initiative in establishing programs. The first level of the program is designed to give the resident a solid basic training; the second enables him to acquire specialized knowledge through in-depth study of the concepts, methods, and techniques of health services, administration and organization. Applying the concept of health services research, the program requires that the resident complement his biomedical and clinical research by studying different methods for the delivery of services, use of resources, and mobilization and use of manpower to organize hospital medical care.