[The Ecuadorean experience: rural work as an axis for the provision of dental services].

This article discusses dental practice up to 1972 and the oral-dental epidemiologic profile in Ecuador. It is then proposed that the indices of oral-dental morbidity can be lowered by establishing a technical unit of national scope, shifting the orientation in the year of compulsory rural service required of dnetal school graduates, training and employing auxiliaries from the communities, adding research to the regular functions of the dentist, and centering the performance of dental services on rural work. Lastly, a detailed description is given of the national rural dentistry program and its operation from 1972 to 1976, and the gains made in the oral-dental care of population are reviewed.