Learning in a clinical environment is central to a health professionals' educational journey including Dentistry. Implementation of curriculum within the clinical learning environment (CLE) prepares dental undergraduates for professional practice. Evaluation is an important part of curriculum design which provides the evidence to support…

Skills and development: The way undergraduate dental students have been taught and their methods of learning have evolved over decades. Education methods and needs: Perhaps the most rapid and exponential changes have been in the last two decades with the introduction and utilisation of digital media platforms and social media capabilities.…

Case-writing within an integrated, systems-based health professions education curriculum presents many unique challenges. Specifically, case-writing in this context must consider integration of multidisciplinary learning objectives and synthesis of biomedical and clinical sciences. Establishing an effective process for content integration and…

There is a need for an assessment tool for evaluating the effectiveness of active learning strategies such as problem-based learning in promoting deep learning and clinical reasoning skills within the dual environments of didactic and clinical settings in health professions education. The Active Learning in Health Professions Scale (ALPHS)…

Repeated studies of graduating dental students indicate limited preparation to provide services for individuals with special healthcare needs. By the end of the 1990s and into the present decade, more than half of the U.S. dental schools provided less than five hours of class room presentations and about three quarters of the schools provided 0-5…

A survey of the design, emphases, and content of predoctoral curriculum in orthodontics shows wide variation in the amount and timing of didactic and clinical instruction. (MSE)

Few predoctoral dental students received clinical experience with handicapped patients, and in recent years, dental educators have indicated that a shortage of patients exists. A study examined the extent to which dental schools have incorporated handicapped and medically compromised patients into their predoctoral comprehensive care program. (MLW)

A survey of 51 of the 53 dental schools in the continental United States investigated pharmacology curriculum content and time allocation. Found that most schools offered a traditional didactic course in basic pharmacology, with half of the medical school-based and three-fourths of the dental school-based programs providing additional pharmacology…

This study attempted to determine the effects of early patient contact through clinic experience upon the perceptions and attitudes of first year dental students. Questionnaires were administered at the beginning and end of students' first year in an innovative and new dental school where they were introduced to clinic experience within the first…

The role of the patient in dental education is examined from several perspectives, including factors influencing the patient population within dental school clinics, the role that patient care plays in schools, and opportunities for attracting and maintaining sufficient patients to provide educational experiences for students. (Author/MLW)

Four due process cases in which judicial decisions were made about dental students' dismissals occurring as a result of poor clinical performance are reviewed. All decisions reiterate the opinion that educators are uniquely qualified to assess a student's academic achievement and professional development. The school's responsibility is also…

This paper provides a progress report on a study of a new dental school that departs from the traditional approach to professional socialization by channeling its students into clinic experience early in the first year of training. Based upon data from the first 2 years of a 6-year longitudinal investigation, the study focuses on the first class…

Detailed descriptions are given of the five computer-generated reports of the Student Advising Information Package provided to advisors for each advisee: (1) Family of Patients; (2) Clinic Activity and Patient Management; (3) Student Procedure Progress by American Dental Association Code; (4) Delinquent Appointments; and (5) Student-Patient…

A laboratory experiment that demonstrates the effects of various dental materials on a representative enzyme from the pulp is outlined. The experiment encourages students to consider the effects that various restorative materials and techniques might have on enzymes in the living pulp. (Author/MLW)

To teach the modern concepts of cavity preparation, it is desirable to have a supply of natural teeth exhibiting suitable carious lesions. This paper describes a simple method for producing consistent artificial lesions in extracted natural teeth. (MLW)