Dental Education Required for the Changing Health Care Environment

Abstract

To be able to meet the demands for care in 2040, dental graduates will need to address challenges resulting from the rapidly changing health care environment with knowledge and sets of skills to build on current standards and adapt to the future. The purposes of this article are to 1) analyze key challenges likely to evolve considerably between now and 2040 that will impact dental education and practice and 2) propose several sets of skills and educational outcomes necessary to address these challenges. The challenges discussed include changes in prevalence of oral diseases, dental practice patterns, materials and technologies, integrated medical-dental care, role of electronic health records, cultural competence, integrated curricula, interprofessional education, specialty-general balance, and web/cloud-based collaborations. To meet these challenges, the dental graduate will need skills such as core knowledge in basic and clinical dentistry, technical proficiency, critical thinking skills for lifelong learning, ethical and professional values, ability to manage a practice, social responsibility, and ability to function in a collegial intra- and interprofessional setting. Beyond the skills of the individual dentist will be the need for leadership in academia and the practice community. Academic and professional leaders will need to engage key constituencies to develop strategic directions and agendas with all parties pointed toward high standards for individual patients and the public at large. This article was written as part of the project "Advancing Dental Education in the 21 Century."

Predictive Validity of a Caries Risk Assessment Model at a Dental School

“…8 Those researchers suggested that the CRA was a useful tool for risk stratiication, which is similar to our indings in which patients experienced a signiicantly higher percentage of new caries-related treatments based on increasing categories of risk. [17][18][19] Conclusion This study found that the dental school's CRA tool when used by students was able to identify patients at increased risk of needing treatment associated with caries over time; however, the evidence suggests that, for prediction purposes, the tool is best at helping draw a distinction between regular risk (low/moderate) and increased risk (high risk). After the caries risk is assigned, the following tab in our caries risk assessment form is the caries management plan, where students document the proposed plan agreed upon with the patient.…”

“…An evaluation of the thought process behind assigning risk based on the factors present would be interesting and could lead to better understanding of a patient's placement into a speciic risk category and assist in the assessment of students' critical thinking skills. [17][18][19]…”

Integrating Competency‐Based Didactic and Experiential Global Health Learning for Dental Students: The Global Health Learning Helix Model

“…Previous studies have made clear the importance of incorporating oral health in global health efforts and the need to address global oral health inequities 1,5,32,33 . Equipping the future oral health workforce with the knowledge and tools required to address oral health inequities is critical for global health efforts 11,34,35 . Dental schools have responded by integrating global health competencies into their curricula, including HSDM with the launch of its Global Oral Health Initiative in 2011 36 .…”

Creación de un Currículo de Competencias en Cariología para Estudiantes de Pregrado de Odontología en Chile.

“…Tema que surgió como consecuencia del proceso de construcción del currículo de Cariología en EE.UU. (8) .…”

“…La interpretación de la etiopatogenia de la enfermedad ha sufrido cambios fundamentales en los últimos años, pasando de la visión de una enfermedad infecciosa y transmisible causada por una sola especie bacteriana, a una visión de enfermedad ecológica no transmisible causada por el desequilibrio del biofilm dental como consecuencia del consumo frecuente de azúcares (5)(6)(7) . Adicionalmente, la formación del odontólogo requiere de la incorporación de herramientas para comprender el rol de factores socioculturales en el desarrollo de la enfermedad y la importancia que durante el manejo integral de los pacientes se incorporen todos estos conceptos (8) . En este contexto, la formación del nuevo odontólogo exige una cuidadosa revisión de las competencias profesionales declaradas en su plan de estudios.…”