INTEGRALITY OF CARE IN DENTAL EDUCATION

REFLECTIONS FROM AN ACADEMIC MOBILITY EXPERIENCE BETWEEN COLOMBIA AND BRAZIL

Abstract

Introduction: International academic mobility can broaden perspectives on professional education and practice by providing opportunities for engagement with different educational contexts. Objective: To reflect on the challenges of dental education in promoting comprehensive care, based on an academic mobility experience between Colombia and Brazil. Experience report: This critical experience report draws on the experience of a Colombian dentist and faculty member during the first year of a doctoral program in Collective Oral Health at a Brazilian public university. Participation in teaching, research, and community outreach activities made it possible to identify, within the Brazilian context, challenges similar to those previously experienced in Colombia, particularly the fragmentation of clinical education, the centrality of procedures, and difficulties in bridging curricular principles and educational practices. Academic mobility enabled the reinterpretation of issues initially perceived as local and prompted critical reflection on the gap between curricula oriented toward integrality of care and educational practices still characterized by fragmentation and a technicist approach. Engagement with Collective Oral Health provided theoretical frameworks for understanding these tensions and reaffirmed the need to integrate technical and scientific competencies with the ethical, social, and political dimensions of care. Conclusion: The experience showed that incorporating integrality of care into curricular documents does not ensure its translation into educational practice. Academic mobility and Collective Oral Health proved valuable in fostering critical reflection on dental education and strengthening educational processes in which people’s needs serve as the central reference for care.