Introduction:

Postgraduate courses in Dental Medicine are part of the professional development that allows to acquire specific competences of the highest level, applied to dental health in clinical care, organization of dental services, which brings together technical and specialized aspects in teaching and research.

Objective:

To expose the tendencies of the development of postgraduate in dental medicine offered in Europe and America.

Method:

Descriptive study in the area of medical education carried out through the search of postgraduate dental programs offered on websites of institutions in Europe and America, during the period from July to December 2017, in the categories specialty, professional master course, master's degree in research, and the PhD level. The method of analysis and synthesis was used to work with the consulted bibliography, mainly from Google Academic, Pubmed, SciElo, Lilacs.

Results:

967 postgraduate dental programs were found at the masters, specialties and PhD levels and in 226 institutions of higher education. In Latin America, more than half of the postgraduate programs in dental can be characterized within the criteria of a specialty, unlike in Europe and Anglo-Saxon America, where the tendency is to offer master's degrees aimed at research and to offer PhD programs. Analyzing the results regarding the tendency of postgraduate programs in dental medicine, it is evident that Orthodontics is the most offered, followed by Endodontics, Dental Pediatrics and Periodontics.

Conclusions:

It is necessary to increase the offer of postgraduate courses in Latin American countries, integrating research, technology, teaching, management and science, in order to generate professionals capable of working worldwide at the level of developed countries.

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