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Anatomy in dental education: past, present, future
Author(s) -
Davenport William D
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.208.4
Subject(s) - curriculum , foundation (evidence) , modalities , relevance (law) , modality (human–computer interaction) , engineering ethics , critical thinking , medical education , discipline , medicine , psychology , computer science , mathematics education , sociology , engineering , pedagogy , political science , artificial intelligence , social science , law
Today we see the labor intensive hours in the classroom and laboratory diminishing. Methods of delivery are also evolving with the development of technology and the modality in which today's student reportedly best learns. With the advent of the competency based model, dentistry has embarked on curriculum changes that have been designed to incorporate life‐long learning, critical thinking, and translational integration across disciplines. Even now there is a focus on interdisciplinary training across the various health care professions. In looking at the various anatomical science curricula across North American Dental Schools, the objectives are still to teach the basic anatomical science foundation as well as include new contemporary information and emphasizing the relevance of the discipline to the practice of contemporary clinical dentistry. The delivery modalities currently include: traditional lecture/lab, PBL, hybrid lecture‐PBL, web‐based, modular, and integrated. Fortunately, there are many ways to “skin a cat” and even schools that are in the continual flux of curriculum renovation report success in delivering adequate foundation knowledge in the anatomical sciences. What is used to assess this? In all instances, it is “passing” the course and “passing” Part I of the National Dental Boards. We have no tool for measuring true learning and application much less any critical thinking skills that should have been developed along the way. Once over the academic hurdle of the basic sciences, the concentration is in the clinical arena where we see considerable disparity in the way the basic foundation knowledge is reinforced in the various clinical disciplines. With the current proliferation of new dental schools, whose curricula range from traditional to unique, we can only look forward to a continued decrease in the available hours for anatomical science education, the lack of facilities for wet lab study of anatomical specimens, an increased integration of the with other disciplines, and an expansion of teaching technologies.