Academic Training in the Face of Health Problems in the Rural Population

The gateway to the Unified Health System is primary care, the main modality of which is the Family Health Strategy (ESF). An ESF includes nursing, medicine and dentistry professionals, and students on these courses must have knowledge of and be close to the local reality in order to work there in the future. As the west of Santa Catarina has around a third of its population living in rural areas, it is hoped that students graduating from an institution in this context will be prepared to care for this population. The aim of this study was to find out more about the academic training provided by the Nursing, Medicine and Dentistry courses at a community university in the western region of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in relation to health care for the rural population in the context of primary health care.