Abstract

PALMIER, Andréa Clemente  and  LUCAS, Simone Dutra. Sorriso no Campo: the experience of the dental faculty of UFMG. Arq. Odontol. [online]. 2011, vol.47, suppl.2, pp. 68-71. ISSN 1516-0939.

Internships represent impact strategies on professional training, where the experiences of academians in public services are of utmost importance. The “Smiles in the Field" project seeks to improve the oral health status of the population living in rural towns within the jurisdiction of the Development Institute of the North and Northeast of Minas Gerais (IDENE) through curative, preventive, and health promotion interventions. The project is a partnership among the State Department of Health (SES), the participating towns, and the Schools of Dentistry in Minas Gerais. SES selects the towns, promotes the discussion with local managers and technicians, and pays for grants for the academians involved. The city halls of the towns provide lodging, food, and dental supplies, as well as supervise the dental professionals on site. The education institutions select students, hold training sessions, and supervise the interns. The UFMG School of Dentistry has participated in the nine project that have taken place since 2004, working in thirty cities. The activities included: a) collective procedures, b) individual procedures, c) proposals for reorganizing the customer services systems, among others. The internship is an essential event in the professional and personal education of students, as it allows students to put into practice the already acquired knowledge and to increase confidence, in addition to representing an opportunity to invest in a proposal to improve the oral health status of the population of the participating towns, based on the concepts that guide the the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).

Keywords : Oral health.; Rural population.; Teaching care integration services..