Introduction

faced with the challenge of training dental surgeons who are fit for the job market, especially the Unified Health System, the National Curriculum Guidelines were established in 2002 with the aim of organizing the curricula of undergraduate dentistry courses, which were updated in 2021.

Objective

a comparative analysis of the 2002 and 2021 National Curriculum Guidelines for dentistry courses, verifying their proposals’ theoretical and practical similarities and differences.

Methods

this is a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory study, using documentary analysis of these guidelines.

Results

from the documentary analysis, six analytical categories were identified: Profile of the graduate; General and specific competencies; Contents for the training of the dental surgeon; Supervised curricular internship and course completion work; Pedagogical project and curricular organization; and Assessment. The 2021 National Curriculum Guidelines is more detailed and complete than the 2002 and strengthens mechanisms for improving and adapting dentistry courses in Brazil.

Conclusion

progress has been made with the inclusion of aspects such as permanent training for teachers, humanization in relationships, interprofessional and entrepreneurship, with the aim of providing training that meets the health needs of the Brazilian population.

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