[The ethical dimension of professional training in health: a case study in undergraduate dentistry courses]

This case study sought to delineate an overview of ethics training on Brazilian undergraduate dentistry courses, in order to gather knowledge related to the changes required with regard to training ethically competent health professionals. Thus, the scope of this study ethics training of students was defined by a conceptual reference, constructed at the interface of inter-related concepts. The reference also contributed to the outlining of this qualitative research, which includes a questionnaire with ethical-pedagogical questions, sent to the coordinators of 15 courses selected for the sample. The results indicated a timely commitment of the courses to the ethical dimension of professional training, as well as advances in training of teaching staff, the profile of the graduate and the curricular integration process. On the other hand, they highlighted deficiencies regarding the contents concerned with the cultural, humanistic and political background in relation to didactic orientation, the teaching-learning scenarios, the evaluation process, and also the incipient presence of bioethics regarding the subject and the crossover curricular theme, together with the lack of specific training of the teaching staff.