ANALYSIS OF ORAL MEDICINE AND ORAL PATHOLOGY TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN BRAZIL

Abstract

<h3>Objectives</h3> Evaluate the teaching of oral medicine (OM) and oral pathology (OP) in dentistry courses in Brazil, analyzing their pedagogical matrices. <h3>Study Design</h3> This is an exploratory study of document analysis. The institutions investigated were collected on the website of the Ministry of Education of Brazil (www.portal.mec.gov.br). Accessing websites of these institutions, we researched their pedagogical matrices. <h3>Results</h3> We studied 567 undergraduate courses in dentistry. The teaching of OM and OP was reported in disassociated subjects in 246 institutions (43.3%) and in association in 23 (4.0%). The exclusive teaching of OM was observed in 129 (22.7%) and exclusive of OP in 13 (2.2%). Additionally, 156 institutions do not report anything about OM or OP disciplines (27.5%). The workload of the OM and OP disciplines taught in association had a mean of 191 hours for OM courses; taught independently, a mean of 108 hours; and for OP courses a mean of 80 hours. <h3>Conclusions</h3> The teaching of OM and OP in Brazil, despite being implemented in most dentistry courses, showed a great inconsistency of curricular information and lack of standardization in workloads, which can prejudice the learning of their basic contents.