Introduction:

Medical emergencies during dental care are events that can affect the health of patients.

Objective:

To characterize medical emergencies during the professional practice of teachers of the dental surgery major.

Methods:

A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out in April 2019. The universe consisted of dental surgeons-teachers who gave their consent to answer the questionnaire, from 12 of the 20 dental clinics of teaching subordination to the School of Dental Education of Havana, as well as Dr. Luis Díaz Soto and Carlos J Finlay Hospitals, also from the Cuban capital. The variables used were teaching category, occurrence of emergencies, specialties, frequency of medical emergencies, type of medical emergency, and procedures in which they are most frequent.

Results:

31.6% of the teachers reported having had at least one emergency; the most frequent were lipotymias (29.6%) and vasovagal syncope (25.6%). 64.6% occurred during extractions.

Conclusions:

Medical emergencies are characterized by being rare events and mostly reported by specialists in Family Dental Care. The most frequent were lipothymia and vasovagal syncope. The procedure during which emergencies occurred most frequently was extraction.

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