Consensus report of the second European Consensus Workshop on Education in Periodontology

BACKGROUND

The second European Consensus Workshop on Education in Periodontology was commissioned, as a result of the changes in the discipline and the advances in educational methods/technology, to update the 2009 Consensus report of the first European Federation of Periodontology (EFP) Workshop on the same topic that was jointly authored by the Association for Dental Education in Europe.

AIM

To identify and propose changes necessary in periodontal education at three levels, namely undergraduate, specialist and continuing professional development (CPD), with respect to learning outcomes, competencies and methods of learning/training and evaluation.

METHODS

Four working groups (WGs) considered education in periodontology at the undergraduate, specialist and CPD levels, and education methods. Four commissioned position papers, one per WG, summarized the relevant information. Workshop participants gathered at an in-person consensus meeting to discuss the individual reviews, and this consensus report summarizes the conclusions.

RESULTS

The learning outcomes for undergraduate and specialist education in periodontology have been updated, and a proposal for learning outcomes for CPD programmes was made. Learning/teaching/training and evaluation methods were proposed for each level of education, which included face-to-face, virtual and blended learning methods.

CONCLUSION

Developments in oral/dental medicine and in contemporary educational technologies have been translated into updated learning outcomes and learning/teaching/ training/evaluation methods relevant to education in periodontology.

The Understanding of Medical Informatics among Dental and Medical Students

Background

Current medical care deeply relies on informatics during all stages of patient care, which is significantly enhanced due to its use. The healthcare professional's formation in medical informatics results crucial for their everyday practice. However, healthcare study programs not always provide education about the use of this wide variety of systems, and young professionals find that they need to learn about it over the experience. The aim of this study was to assess the understanding of medical and dental students regarding medical informatics and ICTs.

Materials and Methods

A questionnaire was produced with 3 sections and a total of 24 questions. Students replied to the survey before and after taking the medical informatics course.

Results

A total of 719 students from second year of medical and dental school were recruited for the study between the period of September of 2017-May 2018, September 2018-May 2019, September 2019-May 2020, and September 2020-May 2021. Medical and dental students showed a good level of understanding regarding medical informatics, as well as a good perception of the relevance of ICT learning for the professional practice. Course attendance increased the percentage of students that felt confident of their knowledge about medical informatics. However, most students felt that little or no medical informatics education was lectured at their schools and that the University should adapt the academic program to include it. After taking the course, the student's perception on this matter was improved.

Conclusion

Medical and dental students find medical informatics learning useful for their future professional practice and feel inclined to use it. However, they feel that Universities need to adapt their programs in order to include medical education courses and trainings; partly because they are not completely aware of the use of ICTs that already are established in their courses.

A student-centered seminar course as a complementary approach to a traditional journal club

Graduate physiology programs strive to provide students with in-depth expertise in a particular academic discipline, often facilitating this process in the form of a departmental seminar course. Within the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California Irvine (UCI), students are required to attend a seminar course, most often designed as a journal club, each quarter until they are ready to graduate. While this format may work well in departments where research topics are closely related, it has historically been less successful in UCI's Department of Physiology and Biophysics, where wide-ranging interests make for little overlap in foundational knowledge, limiting meaningful engagement with the material or with peers in the class. In this paper, we describe a complementary approach of developing a syllabus around student interests and covering topics that are critical for student success but often omitted from graduate curricula, such as interview skills, grant writing, and scientific communication. Results from our preclass survey motivated this approach to the class, and our retrospective survey demonstrated the substantial differences in student engagement, enthusiasm, and perceived benefits of this course relative to the journal club style course. We hope that the success of our course may serve as an exemplar for strategies to engage students more effectively and provide critical training in diverse skillsets that will help students after graduation.

An upgrade of the Malmö model by implementing case-based teaching and learning, in an undergraduate dental education

BACKGROUND

At our dental education, the examination failure rate amongst students has increased, resulting in subsequent involuntary dropouts. One of the main problems seems to be that the students struggle with taking the necessary responsibility for their learning, as required by the problem-based learning (PBL) methodology.

AIM

To describe the background to, and the transition process from, pure PBL to case-based teaching and learning (CBT) with flipped classroom seminars at the dental programme at [anonymised for peer review].

METHODS

In this position paper, we describe our observed problems with the PBL methodology, as implemented at this faculty, and the potential benefits of a change towards CBT. The current implementation of CBT is presented, along with educational research supporting the choice of activities.

RESULTS

Tentative findings are that the flipped classroom seminars and the clearer instructions appear to be successful with higher levels of activity, engagement and attendance amongst the students, and the students have evaluated the seminars as very good learning activities.

CONCLUSION

Tentative findings suggest that the current implementation of CBT may be a fruitful way of teaching in dental education today. Most of the teaching staff have been reawakened to teaching, and as a result, the content of the courses are being reviewed and improved. The students appreciate that what is expected of them has been made clearer and that there is a variety of learning activities.

Method 300: a complementary teaching methodology in Dentistry

This study evaluated Method 300, a complementary teaching methodology in Dentistry. Thirty participants were divided into 6 groups according to the scores obtained in a placement test ranging from 0 to 10. Students with scores lower than 6 were classified as having poor academic performance; students with scores equal to or greater than 6 were considered as having good academic performance. Each group included at least one student with good performance. Our methodology consisted of two application cycles, each including one different test; however, only students with low performance could undergo the second testing. Students held meetings twice a week for one hour and thirty minutes. Of the 54 students initially enrolled in the subject, 24 dropped out, leaving 30 students who completed all the proposed activities. In cycle 1, 24 (80%) students showed poor academic performance and 6 (20%) good. Students with poor performance in P1 significantly improved after P1 300 test application (P < 0.001). After cycle 1 activities, all 30 participants showed significant improvement. In cycle 2, the number of students with good performance tripled when compared to cycle 1, resulting in a decrease in the number of students with poor performance (P = 0.205). Results show that the Method 300 is an important teaching-learning resource in Dentistry, to be used as a complementary methodology to lectures.