The clinic of the body without a mouth

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze oral’s territory approach by professionals and students from medical area during clinical appointments at a Health Basic Center, in São Paulo. This paper can be qualified as a qualitative research, in which the data collected were issued from the observation of doctors and students’ activities over four months of immersion, and were analyzed by hermeneutics-dialectics. It was possible to see that clinical propaedeutic in the medical area and the guide of hard-technologies and the ‘prescriptions’ in clinical approach, rather than the centrality of the subject. In addition, medical students demonstrated lack of knowledge of the service organization, revealing a gap between education and work. In different clinics, even when there was an examination of the oral cavity, connections between finds and symptoms presented by patients were not established. The experience of clinics in the Health Center showed the focus on what “the body left over” when the mouth was removed. Thus, the body-mouth disconnection is reinforced in the medical area.