Should prospective dental students be screened for colour vision deficits?

Mushtaq, Faisal; Baraas, Rigmor C.; Al‐Saud, Loulwa M.; Mirghani, Isra'a; Zee, C van der; Yates, Erica; Keeling, Andrew; Mon-Williams, Mark; Manogue, Michael

doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.2016.633

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…12 Routine colour-vision testing of dental students has been advocated and remains a current topic of debate. 13 , 14 Colour-vision deficiencies affect mostly males with an incidence of approximately 8% for males and 0.5% for females. Four of our teachers were aware of being colour blind (all males) with a further two males and one female being unsure if they had this defect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyesight: a study of the staff of a dental school

2017

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Objectives/Aims:The aim was to investigate the vision of all 90 dentally qualified staff at a dental school.Materials and Methods:Ethical approval was obtained and a questionnaire-based survey conducted. Data were screened and analysed using Stata 13.1. The χ2 and Fisher’s Exact tests were used to test for significance with an alpha level of 0.05.Results:The participation rate was 95.6%. Most of the teachers (92%) considered their eyesight was satisfactory to practice dentistry. Of the 97% who had been tested at some stage, 15% had their eye examination due to sight deterioration with 22% needing correction. Almost two-thirds were myopic and a third were hyperopic. Forty-nine per cent wore spectacles only, with about a quarter of this group alternating between spectacles and contact lenses. Of those with corrected vision, 80% followed their optometrist’s recall advice. Four participants reported that they were colour blind. While 4% had had laser-eye surgery, a further 27% were interested in this. Magnification was used by 72% with no significant differences between genders, age of staff member, place of qualification or registration status. Most of the staff (81%) thought that screening of dental student’s eyesight should be mandatory, and regular eye examinations as a condition of dental practice was supported by 67%.Discussion:The number of teachers reporting recent vision tests was encouraging; nevertheless, a worrying 8% surveyed were unsure if their eyesight was satisfactory for work. The commonest vision problem was myopia, with almost half of the teachers wearing spectacles. It is clear that visual standards for dentistry would be helpful. Magnification use was high, with many non-users indicating their intention to buy loupes.Conclusions:Within the limits of this study the teachers were conscientious regarding their eye care, irrespective of their training and age. There was strong support for the mandatory testing of vision for all dentists and especially dental students.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eyesight: a study of the staff of a dental school

2017

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“…1 2 Tests that are able to predict performance would allow for a more robust selection process and could inform early interventions for students struggling with the demands of the programme. 3–5…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early assessment with a virtual reality haptic simulator predicts performance in clinical practice

et al. 2019

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BackgroundPrediction of clinical training aptitude in medicine and dentistry is largely driven by measures of a student’s intellectual capabilities. The measurement of sensorimotor ability has lagged behind, despite being a key constraint for safe and efficient practice in procedure-based medical specialties. Virtual reality (VR) haptic simulators, systems able to provide objective measures of sensorimotor performance, are beginning to establish their utility in facilitating sensorimotor skill acquisition, and it is possible that they may also inform the prediction of clinical performance.MethodsA retrospective cohort study examined the relationship between student performance on a haptic VR simulator in the second year of undergraduate dental study with subsequent clinic performance involving patients 2 years later. The predictive ability was tested against a phantom-head crown test (a traditional preclinical dental assessment, in the third year of study).ResultsVR scores averaged across the year explained 14% of variance in clinic performance, while the traditional test explained 5%. Students who scored highly on this averaged measure were ~10 times more likely to be high performers in the clinical crown test. Exploratory analysis indicated that single-trial VR scores did not correlate with real-world performance, but the relationship was statistically significant and strongest in the first half of the year and weakened over time.ConclusionsThe data demonstrate the potential of a VR haptic simulator to predict clinical performance and open up the possibility of taking a data-driven approach to identifying individuals who could benefit from support in the early stages of training.

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“…The identification of students with the necessary aptitude for the profession is essential for the training institution and the trainee 1 . The selection of the best suited students will ultimately ensure that the best educated graduates will be entering the dental profession, and thereby benefit patient care for the public in the future (see 2,3 for recent commentaries on these issues). Some dental educationalists have developed lists of domains required for prospective students to become competent dental practitioners.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%