Oral medicine education in predoctoral programs in US dental schools

Abstract

Objective: the purpose of the study was to explore the structure of oral medicine (OM) education in predoctoral dental programs in the United States and to evaluate the students' perception of OM as a dental specialty. Methods: Two anonymous Qualtrics surveys (Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA) were distributed electronically to the academic deans of all the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) accredited dental schools in the United States. Upon completing the survey, the academic deans were asked to forward the student surveys to their students.Results: Note that 26.8% (18/67 dental schools) of academic deans that participated in the survey, 224 senior students responded to the student survey. The results showed that the median number of OM specialists involved in teaching OM to predoctoral students was two. Oral cancer screening and diagnosis and management of oral mucosal diseases were identified by the majority of respondents (95.7%; n = 214 and 96.5%; n = 216), respectively, as part of the scope of practice of OM specialists. Although most students reported Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) and General Practice Residency (GPR) (18.67% n = 42 each) as postgraduate specialties of interest, students' positive impression in OM increased by a crude average of 0.4 with each additional OM faculty member in the school (p = 0.000; 95% CI 0.207-0.594). Conclusion: OM faculty members are in an important position to enhance dental students' perception and interest in OM as a specialty, which would lead to improved awareness of the scope of the specialty and consideration of pursuing specialty training.

The development of an online serious game for oral diagnosis and treatment planning: evaluation of knowledge acquisition and retention

“…Competence in oral medicine has been considered as a prerequisite at both dental undergraduate and postgraduate levels although there appear to be heterogeneities of oral medicine practice due to geographical variations [ 12 ]. As emotional intelligence and clinical decision making are considered as important [ 13 ], clinical training is required to achieve expected competence in diagnosis and management of oral lesions, rather than relying solely on classroom settings [ 14 , 15 ]. Hence, the development of simulation-based serious games in oral medicine should be recommended for students to apply their knowledge in virtual patients before commencing clinical training.…”