The present investigation arose with the purpose of listening to the perception of a group of health professionals with rotating shifts in relation to the competences they must have to face the process of distance education for their training. The researcher contacted a group of five health professionals who have worked under the system of rotating shifts and have undergone both continuous classroom and distance education as a requirement to renew their professional licenses, to be the subjects of this research. The case study was the qualitative strategy used to carry out this study. The researcher interviewed the participants on two occasions and had the opportunity to triangulate the results by reviewing the documents and contrasting with the reflective notes of the field diary. After the transcription process of the interviews, the researcher used the information collected to answer the two questions established in the research design, namely: what are the competencies that the health professional should have in the process of continuous training at distance?, and what are the expectations of the health professionals about rotating issues regarding the alternative of distance education for their training? In addition, the researcher present the findings framed in the Andragogic Theory of Knowles (1991) and of distance education theories mainly the Theory of Transactional Distance of Moore (1976), and analyze them according to the strategy of Wolcott (1991), description , analysis and interpretation.

The results reflected that the participants of this study frame the competences of the health professional who uses distance continuous education as capable of being: self-directed, autonomous, self-regulated, with technological skills and motivated to the process. So they also project their expectations to facilitating instructors and mediators; with a content that possesses; updated information banks, guided didactic conversation, materials based on non-contiguous communication, printed didactic materials generating interpersonal communication and reliable databases; as well as a structure: flexible, holistic, with a decrease in transactional distance, but maintaining the learner's autonomy, with interactive learning networks and open systems.

It is concluded that distance continuous education is an alternative that overcomes the difficulties that face-to-face education implies and considers it as a contribution to their training process. However, the participants showed an ambivalent attitude towards the appraisal of face-to-face and distance continuous education in the current market, although the latter to a lesser degree. Finally, recommendations are proposed for: (1) the development of a new public policy, (2) the Programs of Distance Continuous Education for the training of the Health Professional; (3) Health Professionals and (4) future research.