O conhecimento da ética e da legislação nos cursos de graduação em Odontologia

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: There has been a growing increase in undergraduate courses in Dentistry in Brazil. Recent Dentistry graduates have entered the job market with insufficient knowledge about ethics and dental legislation. OBJECTIVE: To identify studies in Brazilian literature on Ethics and Dental Legislation within the scope of undergraduate Dentistry. METHODOLOGY: This is an integrative literature review, the studies were identified through the LILACS, SciELO, BBO and Google Scholar databases, online, free and in full, from the year 2018 to the first semester of 2023. The categories established to compose the discussion were: Dental Schools and Dental Surgeons in Brazil; The Presence of the subjects of Deontology and Forensic Dentistry in the curriculum of Dentistry courses; Ethics and Dental Legislation from the perspective of students and teachers of Dentistry courses. RESULTS: There is an excessive number of Dentistry courses and dentists distributed unevenly in Brazil, saturating metropolitan centers and lacking in more distant areas. Disciplines on ethics and dental legislation are mandatory in the curriculum in the vast majority of Higher Education Institutions, but students' knowledge about this area of study proved to be insufficient. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: There is a perceived need to reframe and make teaching about ethics and dental legislation in undergraduate Dentistry courses more effective.