Journal of dental education
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This article examines the impact of financial trends in state-supported dental schools on full-time clinical faculty; the diversity of dental students and their career choices; investments in physical facilities; and the place of dentistry in research universities. The findings of our study are the following: the number of students per full-time clinical faculty member increased; the three schools with the lowest revenue increases lost a third of their full-time clinical faculty; more students are from wealthier families; most schools are not able to adequately invest in their physical plant; and more than half of schools have substantial NIH-funded research programs. ⋯ Now is the time to build the political consensus needed to develop new and more effective strategies to educate the next generation of American dentists and to keep dental education primarily based in research universities. The future of the dental profession and the oral health of the American people depend on it.
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The purpose of this study was to determine predoctoral dental student evaluation of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry's Caries-Risk Assessment Tool (CAT) for children. Dental students were introduced to the CAT instrument as part of their didactic pediatric dentistry curriculum. These students were later encouraged to use the CAT instrument for determining caries risk in their pediatric patients. ⋯ Most students agreed that the CAT instrument was easy to understand (86 percent), simple to apply (76 percent), useful for prescribing radiographs (76 percent), and useful for determining preventive procedures (84 percent). Eighty percent of them indicated that they were likely to use the CAT instrument in their clinical practice. In conclusion, student acceptance of the CAT instrument indicates that it may educate predoctoral dental students regarding caries risk assessment in children.