Objectives Because of the importance given to the implementation of health promotion programs nowadays generating positive outcomes important to society and especially to businesses, employees and the financial market this study was designed to assess students’ baseline knowledge of expertise in occupational medicine on health promotion and correlate it with the students’ baseline knowledge Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo (internal fifth-year residents and first-year internal medicine) as well as evaluate their own health habits.

Method We conducted a cross-sectional study in which we applied two questionnaires that had been used in previous studies by Ferreira Junior, 2011. The questionnaires so called 1) “Survey of attitudes and behaviour” and 2) “Questionnaire assessment of knowledge in health promotion.” Regarding the epidemiological data to submit descriptive statistics and Excel filters the table.

Results The higher scores among graduate students, were related to nutrition and oral hygiene, both at present as expected in a year. Questions about professional attitude in their 13 items’ scores were higher post-graduate training in the item. In other items, students’ grades and graduation from residency and postgraduate students were equal. When comparing the mean of graduate students called in questionnaire 2, all items showed lower values in relation to the notes of interns and residents.

Conclusions The loss in quality of care is undeniable, since there is awareness on the part of the respondents own lack of technical knowledge updated with regard to health promotion that contrasts with the self-perception of adequate training to do so.