Dental Education in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Recommendations

Abstract

Moving within the second wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, dental education delivery has been profoundly affected by this crisis, so has the structure, evaluation, and future of dental education. Both pre-clinical and clinical dental education have experienced challenges ranging from fully online educational content to limited dental training for senior dental students. This crisis appears to be a tipping point that produced confusion in dental teaching especially clinical sciences. Although medical institutions immediately started to adapt to the unexpected COVID-19 crisis, dental and oral health educational services are profoundly impaired due to the dental team's propinquity to the patient and the aerosols generated during routine dental therapeutic procedures. Dental students unlike other medical students are considered to be at the highest risk due to the nature of their clinical training that includes working in the oral cavity of patients using aerosol-generating equipment. Some dental schools have taken the leadership and documented their modifications during this pandemic; however, there is a serious need for further investigation and wide range screening of the situation in the dental schools during the COVID-19 crisis. The aim of this mini-review is to present these challenges and how academic dental institutions have implemented strategies to overcome them.

Perceptions of Clinical Dental Students Toward Online Education During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Egyptian Multicenter Cross-Sectional Survey

“…COVID-19 has affected the educational process at all levels. The majority of the educational institutions during the first and the second waves closed campuses and transitioned from physical attendance to virtual learning (Hassan and Amer, 2021). Early in this pandemic, many countries, including Egypt, began to implement precautionary measures, such as social distancing and lockdowns of educational institutions in order to control and mitigate the pandemic (Social Distancing, 2020).…”

“…Dental institutions recognized the challenges this pandemic presented to dental students (Barabari and Moharamzadeh, 2020;Hung et al, 2021). Specifically, the pandemic affected clinical training for dental students, which could delay them from taking regional dental board exams or completing other graduation requirements (Hassan and Amer, 2021;Hung et al, 2021). In Egypt, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research authorized the replacement of ongoing classroom teaching with e-learning for both undergraduate and postgraduate education using various software and interactive online platforms (Hassan and Amer, 2021).…”

“…Specifically, the pandemic affected clinical training for dental students, which could delay them from taking regional dental board exams or completing other graduation requirements (Hassan and Amer, 2021;Hung et al, 2021). In Egypt, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research authorized the replacement of ongoing classroom teaching with e-learning for both undergraduate and postgraduate education using various software and interactive online platforms (Hassan and Amer, 2021). Dental institutions in Egypt encountered many challenges making this transition to online education.…”

Quality, Effectiveness and Outcome of Blended Learning in Dental Education during the COVID Pandemic: Prospects of a Post-Pandemic Implementation

“…Therefore, a stronger impact on dental education was imposed by the pandemic. This issue has been described as one of the major challenges for dental education during COVID-19 pandemic [29][30][31].…”

Rationale and design of the Health Professional Students at the University of Illinois Chicago (HOLISTIC) Cohort Study

“…9 For example, clinical training of dental students temporarily relied on case presentations, rather than experiential learning alongside practicing clinicians due to infection control precautions. 10 Another report found that 70% of medical students reported worsening mental health during the initial months of the pandemic. 11 Prospective cohort studies of health professional students initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic could provide much needed information about changes in the physical, mental, and social health of students during the pandemic and their occupational trajectory as they enter the health professional workforce.…”