Journal of dental education
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
A preliminary study in using virtual reality to train dental students.
This study compared virtual reality simulator-enhanced training with laboratory-only practice on the development of dental technical skills. Sixty-eight students were randomly assigned to practice their skills in either a traditional preclinical dentistry laboratory or in combination with a virtual reality simulator. ⋯ These results indicate that the use of virtual reality simulators holds promise for the training of future dentists. Additional research is necessary to determine the ideal implementation of virtual reality simulators into traditional dentistry curricula.
-
Intercultural competence is an important component of the doctor-patient relationship in the multicultural climate evolving in the United States. We hypothesized that 1) exposure to racial and ethnic diversity in the student body, faculty, staff, and patient population in dental school and 2) a dental school curriculum that includes presentations on issues concerning racial and ethnic diversity will contribute to students' feeling more competent and confident to enter the multicultural work environment that is rapidly developing in the United States. A Likert-type scale questionnaire was administered to 627 fourth-year dental students enrolled in seven dental schools representing geographically diverse regions of the United States. ⋯ Results indicated that both the perception of diversity in the school environment and the presentation of diversity-specific content in the curriculum had moderately positive and significant correlations with the students' perception of their competency or ability to serve and work with diverse populations. The respective Pearson correlation coefficients for diversity in the school environment and diversity curriculum were .497 (p<.001) and .459 (p<.001). These results support the hypotheses that diversity exposure and training in the dental school environment are important for dental students entering a multicultural workplace.