Journal of dental education
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Dental caries remains the single most common chronic childhood disease; without intervention, the prevalence and severity of caries increase into adulthood. Dental schools have begun to integrate caries risk assessment (CRA) and prevention counseling into the curriculum. We sought to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviors of dental students regarding CRA and prevention counseling with children and adults. ⋯ D4 students correctly answered a mean of 70.4 percent of the knowledge-based questions on CRA; the mean score among D1 students was 50.4 percent. Whereas 95 percent of D4 students identified themselves as confident in their ability to assess adult patients for caries risk, only 68 percent had such confidence with patients less than five years. To effectively prevent early childhood caries, dental schools should provide students with the skills necessary to be confident and willing to perform CRA and prevention counseling for all age groups.
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Development of common core curricula for the graduate advanced education/specialty programs in dental schools presents significant challenges. Similarities in graduate education accreditation standards justify such an approach, yet a core curriculum is difficult to achieve for a variety of reasons including scheduling constraints and the capacity of a common, single pathway curriculum to address the specific educational needs of postgraduate students in different disciplines. Additionally, many dental schools are experiencing severe shortages of qualified faculty to provide graduate program instruction. ⋯ This core curriculum was designed to 1) be user-friendly; 2) allow flexibility; 3) meet specific programmatic/accreditation needs for each advanced education program; and 4) provide assessment tools for continuous resident feedback and curriculum improvement. Assessment data obtained from residents, faculty, and program directors indicate that this approach has been successful and has transformed graduate education at Marquette. Thus, this model may prove useful for other institutions seeking to refine or develop graduate core curricula.
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Chinese dental education is organized and controlled by the government at different levels, and the curriculum is based on the stomatology model. The unique feature of this system has been a heavy emphasis on the medical sciences and the integration of medicine with dentistry. However, the problems with this curriculum have been greater than its advantages since a dental student trained under this educational model was unlikely to be well prepared for patient care in a clinical setting and could struggle to apply modern techniques during his or her professional career. ⋯ This article describes the educational model developed during the project and presents several new educational concepts that have been put into practice in dental schools in China. Nevertheless, the new model is not without problems. If there are no additional innovations related to didactic teaching methods, clinical education, and interpersonal skills, the outcome of recent changes in the curriculum of Chinese dental schools will be unpredictable, and our dental education will not continue to advance.
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The purpose of this study was to assess the current characteristics of full-time faculty in baccalaureate dental hygiene programs in the United States. A mail questionnaire was sent to program administrators for distribution to faculty. Program response rate was 89.7 percent (26/29), and full-time faculty response rate was 68.3 percent (114/167). ⋯ A majority of the respondents (56 percent [39/70]) indicated that they plan to retire from the labor force in ten years or less. Three conclusions may be drawn from the findings of this study: 1) there is a lack of diversity within the dental hygiene faculty, which currently consists primarily of white females with few underrepresented minorities and males; 2) if trends persist, there will be a noticeable shortage of dental hygiene educators in the future as faculty move toward retirement without equivalent numbers of younger individuals joining the ranks of the faculty; and 3) there is a lack of published information regarding dental hygiene faculty characteristics. To address the potential academic workforce shortage, we make two recommendations based indirectly on the findings of this study: 1) the American Dental Association should include more information on dental hygiene faculty characteristics in its existing annual survey of all accredited programs; and 2) the number of advanced education programs in dental hygiene should be increased.