Journal of Dental Education最新文献

Purpose: It is critical for oral health professionals to value careful decision-making and thoughtful reflection about their patient care and role in advancing the profession. Dental programs are obligated to play a substantive role in facilitating ethical dialogs to prepare clinicians for future practice. We aim to determine how the current Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) Standard on Ethics and Professionalism instruction (2-21) is being interpreted within predoctoral dental programs and investigate recommendations for ethics instructors.

Methods: A Qualtrics survey was designed to gain information about content, integration, and delivery of ethics and professionalism instruction. This survey was completed by faculty members across twenty-four CODA-accredited dental programs. Quantitative data was compiled for comparison while qualitative data was analyzed via inductive coding with a standardized codebook developed based on relevant themes.

Results: While many similarities exist between modalities used for ethics instruction by various programs, there was variability in integration, content, and attitudes relevant to teaching outcomes.

Conclusion: Curricular efforts dedicated to ethics and professionalism and assessment strategies to determine graduate-level mastery are variable in quality and quantity amongst surveyed programs. Interprofessional approaches to ethics content delivery are emerging, and additional data is needed to assess its impact on clinical outcomes. Targeted recommendations include investing in learning opportunities that require active engagement to encourage personal reflection and developing a dedicated network of support and collaboration for dental ethics course directors to expedite exchange of best practices for instruction, evaluation, and promotion of student engagement.

Persistent inequities in oral health reflect systemic, not solely clinical, challenges-shaped by policies, payment structures, and institutional norms that govern care delivery. Yet dental education has historically prioritized technical competence over preparing graduates to understand and influence these systems. This perspective argues that policy advocacy should be recognized as a core competency for dental professionals and embedded throughout predoctoral education. Drawing from the experience of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Adams School of Dentistry (UNC ASOD), this commentary presents a replicable framework for integrating policy advocacy and systems-change training within dental curricula. The ACT model reframes dental education around three identities - Advocate, Clinician, and Thinker - ensuring advocacy is woven into foundational, clinical, and individualized learning experiences. Required courses such as Civic Engagement and Leadership in Health Care and Partnering with Community to Improve Oral Health introduce students to health policy, systems thinking, and community-based engagement through assignments like oral health policy analyses and community health needs assessments. Quantitative evaluation shows statistically significant increases in students' confidence and self-efficacy to engage in oral health policy reform (Cohen's d = 0.45-0.86, p < 0.05). Building on these foundations, the UNC Program for Oral Health Policy and UNC Oral Health Policy Scholars Initiative provide advanced pathways for experiential learning through externships, mentorship, and capstone policy projects. Together, these initiatives demonstrate that advocacy and clinical excellence are mutually reinforcing. The UNC ASOD framework offers a scalable model that other dental schools can adapt by embedding advocacy education across coursework, clinical experiences, and individualized learning. Integrating policy advocacy education within dental curricula equips graduates to not only provide high-quality clinical care but also address the social and political determinants of oral health. As health systems evolve, preparing dentists to serve as informed advocates is essential to achieving equity, access, and systemic transformation in oral health care.

Introduction: The satisfaction of orthodontic residents with their training programs is a key indicator of program effectiveness and serves as an important guide for the improvement of educational and clinical training programs. This survey was conducted to evaluate the perceived satisfaction of orthodontic residents with the current training in the United States.

Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional study that utilized a 40-item structured survey to assess the satisfaction of orthodontic residents regarding their training programs. The survey was anonymous and assessed 27 various aspects of residency training.

Results: A total of 85 residents responded to the survey, yielding a response rate of less than 10%. The mean age was 29.94 ± 3.55 years; 60.7% were females. Overall, 78.8% of respondents were satisfied with their overall residency training, with the highest areas of satisfaction observed in clinical training (89.4%), clinical infrastructure (86.9%), access to patients to achieve clinical competency (88.2%), and interpersonal dynamics with co-residents (88.3%), part-time faculty (95.3%), full- time faculty (78.8%), and program director (78.8%). Residents were less satisfied with the organization, structure, and delivery of didactic content (47%), the allotted research time (50.6%), research mentorship (44.8%), and auxiliary staff support (38.9%). Females were less satisfied with their research preparation (p = 0.013), and residents in shorter programs were more satisfied with business and practice management preparation (p = 0.02).

Conclusions: While most residents in this sample reported overall satisfaction with their training, notable gaps remain in the didactic, clinical, and research areas. Despite the low response rate, which limits the generalizability of the study, these findings underscore the need for ongoing program evaluation and suggest that CODA may benefit from directly incorporating resident feedback into the accreditation process.

Background: Advancements in three-dimensional (3D) printing have introduced innovative tools for medical and dental education. In dental surgery, 3D-printed simulation models offer valuable presurgical training. This review explores the scope, study types, key findings, limitations, and future research needs to enhance their application in dental education.

Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted across seven major health and education databases for studies published up to June 2025. A structured search strategy was developed using a combination of MeSH terms and keywords related to dental and oral surgical procedures, educational interventions, and 3D printing. Two reviewers independently screened and evaluated the retrieved articles. Studies were included if they investigated the use of 3D-printed models as hands-on simulation tools for intraoral surgery education. Only peer-reviewed articles published in English were considered.

Results: A total of 3686 studies were identified, 34 of which met the inclusion criteria after screening. These studies, largely published within the past decade, evaluated the use of 3D-printed models as training tools across five core areas of intraoral surgery, with the greatest focus on minor oral surgery (32%) and maxillofacial related procedures: orthognathic procedures (26%), followed by cleft palate surgery (15%), implant surgery (15%), and periodontal interventions (12%). Various printers and materials were employed, with an emphasis on model fabrication and evaluation through trainee feedback. The models were widely accepted by trainees, who reported improved technical skills, increased confidence, and reduced procedure time. However, challenges remain, particularly the need for advanced soft tissue-replicating material to enhance anatomical realism.

Conclusion: 3D-printed models are effective tools for pre-operative planning and hands-on training in oral surgery. Future research should focus on developing cost-efficient printing technologies and advanced materials to better replicate hard and soft tissues in these models. Furthermore, well-designed studies are needed to support changes to implementation into current curricula and enhance the delivery of surgical education.

The shortage of dental faculty in US dental schools has emerged as a critical concern, undermining institutions' ability to sustain optimal faculty-to-student ratios and ensure educational excellence. This paper synthesizes national workforce data, institutional climate surveys, and recent literature to examine multifactorial barriers to faculty retention in academic dentistry. Principal retention challenges include burnout, workload imbalances, generational work style differences, compensation disparities, and emerging disengagement trends such as quiet quitting. Evidence-based strategies are discussed, including structured mentorship, transparent advancement opportunities, effective onboarding, leadership engagement, workplace flexibility, and institutional culture reform. The review concludes with actionable recommendations and identifies priority areas for future research, including multi-institutional longitudinal studies and cost-effectiveness analyses of retention initiatives.

Purpose: This mixed methods study, framed by Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory, explored allied dental students' perceptions of alginate versus digital impression techniques at a US dental assisting and dental hygiene program in 2024. The central research question was, "What are students' perceptions of taking maxillary alginate impressions as compared to a digital scan of the maxillary arch?" and the sub-question was, "Do students have a preferred technique?"

Methods: A mixed methods approach enabled a deeper understanding of student perception through qualitative analysis related to using both the alginate impression and digital scanning techniques, and quantitative analysis related to evaluations of the final impressions and scans. Using Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory as a guide, this research study was centered around a concrete experience with hands-on learning and then student reflection related to the experience and their perceptions or abstract conceptualization. A convenience sample of 30 dental assisting and dental hygiene students currently enrolled in a dental materials course participated. Data collected via questionnaires, behavioral observation, and impression/scan analysis were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Coding was used to identify key themes in students' perceptions of alginate and digital impression techniques.

Results: Five themes were derived from data collection for both maxillary alginate impressions and maxillary digital scans: emotions/feelings, technique/process, benefits, and drawbacks/obstacles. Overall, participants preferred using digital scanning over alginate impressions. Most students (79% n = 22) perceived alginate impressions as more time intensive despite objective time data suggesting otherwise. There was a statistically significant difference in the average time to complete an alginate impression compared to the digital impression. There was no difference in digital impression quality between dental assisting and dental hygiene students, and dental assisting students expressed more apprehension when using the alginate impression technique compared to dental hygiene students.

Conclusion: Echoing previous research, students recognized the advantages of digital scans, such as improved patient education, comfort, and ease of cleanup. Conversely, they shared concerns about the time constraints and rushed feeling associated with alginate impressions, also previously documented.

Purpose/objectives: To examine factors, exposures, and events that affect dental students' anticipated comfort and willingness to treat underserved populations.

Methods: A survey assessing exposure to, and anticipated comfort and willingness to treat nine underserved populations (low-income, homeless, non-English speakers, medically complex, mentally compromised, Medicaid users, drug users, frail elderly, and people with HIV/AIDS), and social responsibility was given to first (D1) and second (D2) year dental students in fall 2024. Students also indicated whether their clinical experiences, volunteer events, faculty, peers, or courses affected their willingness to treat the underserved.

Results: Surveys were returned by 114 of 140 D1 (84.4%), and 65 of 100 D2 students (65.0%). There were no differences in feelings of social responsibility by school year, gender, or race (p > 0.10). In regressions, social responsibility was positively associated with anticipated comfort treating frail elderly (p = 0.03) and people with HIV/AIDS (p = 0.02), and with willingness to treat almost all underserved populations (p's < 0.03). Exposure to each specific underserved population was associated with greater anticipated comfort treating that population after dental school (p < 0.03). Exposure to drug users and people with HIV/AIDS was associated with greater anticipated willingness to treat these populations (p = 0.01 and p = 0.03). Clinical experiences had the greatest impact on students, with 80.9% indicating they increased willingness to care for underserved populations.

Conclusions: Exposing dental students to clinical experiences with a wide variety of underserved populations may enable them to become more comfortable and willing to treat a diversity of underserved populations after dental school, thereby potentially increasing access to care.

Biochemistry forms the foundation for understanding biomolecules and molecular processes crucial to dental and oral biology. However, it is often perceived as a challenging subject for dental students with diverse educational backgrounds. Analogies are a pedagogical tool that helps explain new and abstract concepts in biochemistry. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted teaching and learning activities, prompting shifts in instructional models. This cross-sectional study evaluates dental students' perceptions of analogies in biochemistry education through surveys conducted at the National University of Singapore. Participants included pre-pandemic (2019) and post-pandemic (2024) dental student cohorts, consisting of 57 and 64 students, respectively. Both cohorts reported overwhelmingly positive responses toward the usefulness of analogies, with average scores of 4.6 ± 0.6 in 2019 and 4.7 ± 0.5 in 2024. Most students indicated that analogies enhanced their visualization of abstract concepts (100% in 2019 and 96.9% in 2024) and improved knowledge retention (82.5% in 2019 and 68.8% in 2024). However, a small proportion of students noted that analogies are taken literally and difficult to differentiate from reality (5.3% in 2019 and 4.7% in 2024). Students generally found analogies associated with unfamiliar topics to be more memorable. These findings suggest that analogies remain a relevant and effective tool in biochemistry education, even amid shifts in educational delivery models.