Introducing career skills for dental students as an undergraduate course at the University of Szeged, Hungary

Abstract

Background: In the last three decades there is a growing recognition in the dental profession that dental education must go beyond teaching the technicalities of dentistry and include professionalism and communication skills that the future dentist may need. Such skills are best taught in a student-centered way. Literature suggests that student-centered elements are difficult to introduce in traditional, teacher-centered curricula. This is especially true in post-communist countries where higher education was under strict state control for decades. The aim of the piece of research presented here was to investigate how difficult it is to introduce a student-centered career skills course in a traditionally teachercentered dental curriculum.Methods: Considering the needs of our final-year dental students and Super's model of career development, we created an undergraduate curricular career skills course running for two semesters in two languages (Hungarian and English). The primary aim of the course is to help students with their career expectations and develop their identity as a professional workforce. The secondary aim is to teach skills that students can use when applying for a job. At the end of the semesters, we assessed our students' satisfaction with various aspects of the course by using a questionnaire. Results were analyzed item-wise and according to the main aspects of the course (i.e., groups of items organized around a particular aspect). Results: General satisfaction with the course was high, and practical skills training (such as CV and motivation letter writing) got the highest scores. From the answers it appears that the students were the least comfortable with having to deal with their personal values and preferences. Conclusions: While it is common for universities to offer various forms of career intervention, to our knowledge, no other university offers a curricular career skills course specifically for dental students. Our student-centered course designed in a problem-based learning framework worked even in a traditionally teacher-centered educational environment, where university students are rarely encouraged to be active participants in courses. By sharing our experience, we would like to encourage our fellow dental educators working in similar environments to devise and offer such courses.

Assessing dental students’ professional satisfaction with operative dentistry teaching and curriculum

“…The secondary aim is to teach skills that students can use when applying for a job. [ 5 ] Satisfaction and attitude are 2 indicators that help determine education quality. Satisfaction refers to the level to which students’ experiences meet their expectations.…”

Formation of Professional Readyness of the Future Specialist

“…The article by Szabó, Davis, and Antal (2020) substantiates the importance of developing communication skills among future dentists. Costa et al (2020) evaluate the behavior of dentists regarding the use of subjective characteristics of patients.…”

Dental Students’ Perception Towards Internal Medicine

“…[16][17][18][19] Szabó et al claim and propose implementation of innovative student-centered course designed in a problembased learning framework to be beneficial even in traditional teacher-centered educational environment. 20 The mission of education is to prepare students to continue to grow in skill and knowledge. Hence, determining effective ways to enhance their interest level should always be emphasized and implemented.…”