Introduction: the Political Constitution of Colombia defines, as one of its essential principles, the recognition and protection of the Colombian ethnic and cultural diversity, which involves guaranteeing their rights, like the right to health, as conceived from their cultural characteristics. Objective: seize the cultural traditions and oral hygiene practices of the Zenú indigenous population. Methods: a qualitative study conducted in 2011. This study takes up again the ethnographic approach and method. 10 individuals from the Zenú community participated in the data collection process. The performed activities included observation, field logs, comprehensive interviews and observation groups. The analysis comprised the data condensation, from a descriptive and interpretative exercise, which was organized in three analysis categories, which resulted in several trends. Results: in spite of the westernization processes, traditional myth related practices, as well as broad and positive magical-religious conceptions on health and oral hygiene are still implemented. The inter-generation transmission is still valid, and dentistry services are only used when oral conditions cannot be cured by traditional treatments. Conclusion: preservation of traditions and ancestral oral health care practices call for the reorientation of the education of oral health care providers to further their science conception and, thus, facilitate the recognition of cultural differences and social inclusion processes for different groups.

Field research in oral health has traditionally been guided by the biomedical perspective, with great emphasis on biological aspects and little progress in addressing the social determinants of the process of oral health illness. This shows that, since the beginning of the modern project, with its positioning of a hegemonic model to carry out scientific work, characterized by the privilege of research that points to biotechnological advances, due to the acceptance of a single epistemology and restricted approaches to a methodological focus, such research has not significantly contributed to overcoming oral health problems. That is evident, among other reasons, given the high prevalence of preventable oral diseases, such as dental caries and periodontal disease. We thus take part in great progress in restoration materials, sophisticated technologies for oral rehabilitation processes and innovative surgical procedures, while continuing limitations on access to these benefits for a large part of the population remains a concern.

Introduction: Employability is related to insertion of graduates into the working market according to a variety of factors, including the conditions of the market itself. Objective: To describe aspects related to employability of graduates from two undergraduate dental programs in Medellin-Colombia. Methods: A descriptive study comprising 446 dental professionals, selected by non-probabilistic sampling was carried out. Information was obtained by interviews and processing was performed using software SPSS V 22. A univariate analysis was performed and two multivariate techniques were used: the tree technique to identify statistically significant relations between variables and multiple correspondence to establish relations between different categories of variables. Results: 38% of participants stated to be working as employees and 45.1% as independents. 16.9% was not working in their profession at the time of the interview. The monthly average salary was mostly under $1.500.000 (28.8%). 32% of dental professionals was recently graduated and under services contracts. Most professionals reported to be working in clinical practices. Conclusion: Some aspects of employability explored in this study showed unfavorable conditions for graduates, including precarious contracts, low income, no affiliation to social security services and difficulty to insert into the working market, especially for recently graduated professionals.

Introduction: The main objective of this study was to establish the frequency of dental consultation by children who attend community homes that belong to the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (icbf, Colombian institute for family welfare) in Medellin. Methods: We performed a descriptive evaluation to ascertain the frequency of dental consultation by 320 children from icbf with ages between 6 months and 5 years. Surveys were used to gather information from mothers or primary caregivers. Results: 57.2% of the children had been previously taken to the dentist. 89.6% of those children had been taken within the last year. Among the reasons given by care givers to not attend dental consultation, 56.4% stated that children were too young and 22.1% revealed that they requested the appointment but it was not scheduled. Significant differences regarding type of social security insurance or socioeconomic status among those who were taken to the dentist and those who were not were not found (Chi2 2,87, p value 0,4117 and Chi2 5,84; p value 0,5399, respectively). Conclusion: There is a low frequency of dental consultation by boys and girls during the early childhood despite the fact that such procedure is important for their adequate emotional and physical growth and development and that other studies have shown that cavity prevalence is high in this population.

Introduction: This research was sponsored by the Secretary of Health of Medellin and udea by an Inter-administrative Agreement No. 4800001581, whose objective is to describe oral health status of school children in Medellin and explore meanings and practices of oral health and disease for this population in 2006 to contribute to a strategy design in order to promote health and trying to outrange the predominant instrumental technical guidance in teaching programs. Materials and methods: A hermeneutic, qualitative approach focused on understanding students’ texts as an expression of their sense world built by their own experiences; included 12-and-13 year children (120). Depth interview and storytelling in a workshop context were used for data collection. We constructed a category matrix for analysis, so meanings were taken as a main reference. Results: Two trends emerged, one related to self-care meanings determined by a health biological conception and a body trivial relationship. The other trend is related to lacking basic concepts which affects practices. Conclusions: To generate teaching processes in order to outrange the instructional model and enable the health experience in everyday life, so they allow a deep meaning development which in turn will lead to a careful behavior by themselves and each other.

Introduction: the objective of this work was to understand the progress attained by the educational community in appropriation and commitment to the process of oral health promotion and education, and in identifying school environmental conditions that favor or impede implementation of the actions proposed in the framework of the “Healthy Schools” strategy of the Secretariat of Health of Medellín. Methods: qualitative study with a hermeneutic approach and method. To gather the information, five focus groups were formed with educators from the first and third grades of basic primary education; five in-depth interviews were held with teaching administrators and two interviews with third-grade children in basic primary education. The analysis was based on inductive logic and the work was performed on three levels: identification of regularities, categorization of information and construction of meaning. Results: the information is organized into three categories of analysis and their respective trends, particularly: responsibility in health, a commitment by all educational actors; timid inclusion of oral health as a curricular initiative, and programmatic interference by the school dynamic, which negatively affects the success of cooperative work. Conclusion: through the implementation of health strategies in the schools, progress has been achieved, particularly from the standpoint of combining health and education as broadly transcendent social sectors in order to facilitate the appropriation of health actions. Nonetheless, oral health initiatives have not been consolidated in day-to-day school life.

Introduction: Teacher-student interaction is one of the most important aspects for adequate development of the learning process. Objectives: To interpret and describe the interaction between students and teachers in the School of Dentistry at the Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia by approaching their experiences in different learning environments. Methods: A qualitative study was carried out with an approach and method that take up elements of ethnography. Ten in-depth interviews with students and teachers as well as participant observation were conducted, and field journals were completed. For the analysis, pre-established and emerging categories were considered, from which several trends emerged. Results: Students express continuity of a role of power by some of the teachers in the clinical area, which is reflected in the imposition of authority and little recognition of the student. Teachers, through their experiences, question the way in which students from the new generations understand the discipline.

Introducción y objetivo: la ortodoncia se considera una especialidad clínica ejercida tradicionalmente en el marco de la práctica liberal independiente, sin embargo, los cambios en las dinámicas del mundo laboral, ameritan realizar monitoreo permanente de condiciones laborales de graduados de especialidades odontológicas. Describir las condiciones laborales y la satisfacción con el ejercicio profesional de los graduados del programa de ortodoncia, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia, Sede Medellín. Materiales y métodos: estudio descriptivo transversal sobre el total de la población de graduados del programa. La información se recolectó a través de una encuesta. Se realizó análisis univariado para la descripción de la información y análisis bivariado para explorar asociaciones. Resultados: la frecuencia de respuesta fue del 65% y la totalidad de los participantes reportó un tiempo menor a 6 meses para su inserción laboral. Se estableció con mayor frecuencia contratación por prestación de servicios. En general, la satisfacción con el ejercicio profesional fue alta, sin embargo, un 39,4% reportó mediana o baja satisfacción con el tipo de contrato. El sexo se encontró asociado al número de horas laboradas semanalmente. Conclusiones: las condiciones de los graduados son favorables en ciertos aspectos, entre ellos, la inserción al mercado laboral en corto tiempo. Asimismo, los ingresos están en rango alto frente a los promedios del país, sin embargo, se requieren estudios que amplíen el análisis acerca de aspectos como el tipo de contratación, las horas laboradas y elementos de flexibilización laboral que pueden llevar a un deterioro progresivo del ejercicio profesional de los especialistas.