Journal of dental education
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The recent intense attention given to the existence of racial and ethnic health care disparities in the United States has resulted in an enhanced focus on the problem and a call to integrate cultural competence training into health professions curricula. While most dental schools have formally integrated cultural competence into their curricula, the professional literature contains little information regarding the specific types of curriculum modifications necessary to prepare culturally competent dentists. ⋯ Students' reflection papers also provided qualitative evidence that experience with the curriculum modules was transformational for some. Recommendations for future curriculum modifications and follow-up research studies to validate the instrument are discussed.
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Comparative Study
A blended learning course taught to different groups of learners in a dental school: follow-up evaluation.
This article reports the results of a follow-up study conducted to investigate students' perceptions about a blended learning health informatics course that combined online and traditional classroom instruction. The course is taught to five different groups of students at the School of Clinical Dentistry of the University of Sheffield each academic year: first-, third-, and fourth-year dental students, dental hygiene and therapy students, and postgraduate dental students. The goal of the study was to determine the impact of the modifications made to the course after the first year of implementation. ⋯ The non-participant observer technique identified different engagement levels among the student groups. Discernible differences were identified, with improvement in some areas and a decline in others compared to a previous evaluation. The change in the delivery method influenced the students' comprehension of the material negatively and the learning environment positively, but did not influence online collaboration among students.
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The objective of this study was to explore how dental hygiene programs in the United States educate their students about treating patients with special needs. Data were collected from 102 U. S. dental hygiene programs (response rate=49 percent) with a web-based survey. ⋯ Nevertheless, 29.4 percent of the respondents indicated that they support an increase in clinical experiences for students to give them increased opportunities to work with patients with special needs. Recent changes in accreditation standards require graduating dental hygiene students to be competent in assessing the treatment needs of special needs patients. Based on the program directors' responses, recommendations can be made to increase the opportunities for students to have clinical experiences with patients with special needs and to address the needs of patients with special needs more comprehensively in dental hygiene curricula.