Percepção dos acadêmicos de Odontologia sobre o curso: revisão discutida da literatura

Abstract

The Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde [SUS]) has experienced a significant increase in the quality and quantity of services offered to the population, resulting in the need for the insertion of well-prepared generalist professionals. The national curriculum guidelines (diretrizes curriculares nacionais [DCN]) for undergraduate courses were created with the aim of updating and standardizing Brazilian higher education, in order to make it more qualified in terms of teaching, valuing and promoting professional ethics. The DCN for the Dentistry course, updated in 2021, advocate the training of a general dentist, including comprehensive health care. However, it is observed that some institutions focus their curricula on specialties, meeting specific demands and limiting the quality of dental surgeon training for general practice in public health. This heterogeneous organization of the training path can generate different impressions and behavior of students in relation to graduation. Thus, the objective of this study was, through a discussed review of the literature, to understand the perception of dentistry students about the course. Scientific works published between 2012 and 2022, from the Scielo, PubMed and Scopus databases, using the terms in Portuguese, English and Spanish: academic, student, Dentistry, perception, clinical and basic were selected. It was observed that, in relation to the labor market, academics consider it favorable and plan to work as freelancers in private practices. Regarding the basic cycle of the course, there was a perception that biological curricular units such as Pharmacology should be taught concomitantly with the cycle of outpatient care. With regard to the clinical cycle, it was observed that students are aware of the increased responsibility, but the low intake of patients can hinder the exercise of practice. As for extramural internships in the health network, structural difficulties, unhealthy conditions, lack of equipment and instruments were highlighted by the students, which may distance them from the desire to exercise the profession in the public service.