Perspectives of Dental Students in Oral Surgery Education and Training

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Graduating dental students are expected to be competent in performing minor oral surgical procedures, but this depends on their education and training while in dental school. Students’ self-perceptions in performing surgical procedures offer valuable insights and highlight shortcomings in the current oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) education and training. The surgical skills of dental students have been found deficient in certain aspects in previous surveys conducted in Europe (Macluskey, et al, 2012; Cabbar, et al, 2019), but none have been conducted/published in the United States. The aim of this study is to evaluate dental students’ self-perception of their competency in surgical skills to perform oral surgical procedures and practice "independently" at a dental school in the United States.A cross-sectional survey of dental students in class of 2021 (D4) and 2022 (D3) was conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Dentistry February-March 2021. The Association of British Academic Oral Maxillofacial Surgeons (ABAOMS) questionnaire was utilized and adapted, with permission, in accordance with the OMS curriculum in U.S. dental schools. The questionnaire (Figure 1) involves 17 items covering 5 domains (information, experience, skills, knowledge, and interest, in addition to feedback section for comments). The responses were scaled on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The anonymous data were collected and entered into the REDCap database, and the responses were summarized using descriptive statistics and compared using Fisher's Exact test. A P-value of < .05 was considered statistically significant. All narrative feedbacks were tabulated and analyzed qualitatively. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB # HM20020893).Sixty-four students (46 D3, 18 D4) participated (32 M, 32 F). Most D3 students performed fewer than 25 extractions (91%), while most D4 performed more than 25 extractions (89%). Analysis of the responses per question is detailed in Figure 2. Comparative analysis between the classes showed that the D4 were significantly more confident than D3 in performing surgical extractions while the D3 were significantly more confident in understanding head and neck anatomy. Comparative analysis between the genders showed that the females were significantly more confident than males in various aspects of OMS practice. Overall, the majority of D3 and D4 students felt more confident performing simple dental extractions than surgical extractions. Most students felt the OMS specialty is an enjoyable and rewarding discipline and consider practicing OMS procedures after graduation despite feeling unconfident in certain aspects. Qualitative analysis revealed that the main recurrent themes were the limited time allowed and devoted to practice dental extractions and the need for more hands-on supervised training.The students’ responses highlight the importance of teaching and supervised training by oral surgery faculty and the need to allocate more time to practice surgical procedures to enhance students’ self-confidence. The questionnaire is a useful survey tool to evaluate, and subsequently improve, the OMS curriculum, teaching, and training among the U.S. dental schools. The plan is to conduct a national survey via future collaboration with the ADA and AAOMS.