Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on Dental Training of Students and Residents in USA

Abstract

The turn of this decade has seen the start of a pandemic originated in Wuhan, China that inundated the world by the emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. This may result in dental and training taking a back seat, as critical resources are channeled toward frontline efforts to combat outbreaks. In dental education, patient care and service is an important a mandate within the healthcare system. There must be some contingency plans to minimize the disruption of the education and training. Advance in the physical structure and protocol of the dental practice on live patients will become the new normal in dentistry. This gap in time created by the pandemic is an opportunity to expand the horizon of the dental professional into the scope of the oral physician with a broader focus of the responsibility of the dentists as the scientist, the artist, the engineer and the doctor must be adopted in practice.