Teaching and learning in implant dentistry: reflecting on achievements and challenges

Abstract

Implant dentistry is not a novelty any more, as more than30 years of research and development have added to ourunderstanding of biology and technology. Today, we have theknowledge, the devices and the protocols that can lead tohighly predictable and sustainable treatment outcomes and ben-efit a wide portion of the population. At the same time, theeducational structures, which will ensure the safe and effectivepractice of implant dentistry, are still lagging behind.In 2008 in Prague, a broad group of university teachersand experts from all over Europe came together to set thebenchmarks with regard to the knowledge and competenciesa general dentist today must possess in implant dentistry andalso the main pathways to acquire them. The papers pro-duced at that workshop have been a significant contributionto dental education and have set the standards we all agreedto strive for. Five years down the road, despite the progressmade, we are certainly not short of challenges with regard tothe teaching of implant dentistry. Two European-wide sur-veys revealed a certain level of controversy in the current sit-uation of the teaching of implant dentistry. On the onehand, it appears that almost all schools have significantlyincreased the quantity of teaching of implant dentistry intheir curricula, while in many cases pre-clinical and clinicaleducation components have been introduced. On the otherhand, the benchmark set by the Prague consensus is still notreached in the majority of institutions, while there persists awide diversity in learning outcomes among the different uni-versities. Even if consensus on the desired learning outcomeshas been achieved, it appears that implementation of implantdentistry in the dental curriculum remains a challenge.Meanwhile, the situation with regard to post-graduation edu-cational pathways appears diverse and unclear. In the lastfew years, a large number of university programmes inimplant dentistry have been developed with seemingly similarendpoints and degrees, but very diverse learning outcomes.At the same time, the field of Continuing Professional Devel-opment (CPD) appears to be inflated by a wide variety ofcourses, which, however, are often fragmented and lackdirection as well as clear quality assurance structures.Although uniformity is not desired, introducing some stan-dardisation, quality assurance mechanisms and transparencyof the learning outcomes would certainly benefit the educa-tional process. Also very important in a clinical discipline,transparency could also help the profession and the public tomatch the education attended with the skills and competencesacquired by the clinician.Having a different set of challenges ahead of us, the needfor a second consensus workshop was apparent. If at the firstworkshop the curricula were defined, in the second it wastime to closely discuss the educational structures. Forty-eightleading academics contributed to a 3-day conclave in Buda-pest, including university teachers of implant dentistry, mem-bers of relevant scientific associations, experts, as well asindustry observers. The workshop investigated three directions:Undergraduate Education, University Degree Programmes andCPD. The current special issue is consequently the product ofthe 2nd Consensus Workshop, but of course the work that ledto these publications was initiated long before the actualworkshop.First, two questionnaire surveys were conducted to investi-gate the current status of implant dentistry education, onefocusing on university education (1) and the other on CPD(2). These surveys provide a very good insight into theachievements of the last few years, but also pinpoint theemerging challenges. The second step was to appoint threegroups of reviewers, each with the aim to review the avail-able evidence, best practices, guidelines and policies or rele-vant publications within the three workshop directions. Theseposition papers became the ‘backbone’ of the discussionsduring the consensus workshop and were peer-reviewed foraccuracy and scientific validity by the participants of eachgroup in the most rigorous way. The final versions of thethree review papers are available in this special issue (3–5)and will supplement the consensus recommendations withthe appropriate detail. Finally, possibly the most importantpaper of all, the consensus paper (6), represents the commondenominator among all experts: the conclusions and recom-mendations that were adopted by all and that we hope willbe a valuable tool in the hands of educators and practitio-ners alike. This special issue also includes an original studyon the treatment outcomes of implants placed and restoredby dental students conducted in the University of Ghent (7).Implant dentistry has today reached the maturity of a widelyapplicable, well documented and efficient treatment modalityin the service of oral rehabilitation. At the same time, as thebasis of practice widens, adherence to the highest educationalstandards is essential to continue serving our patients in thebest possible way.I am deeply grateful to all the colleagues and experts whospared no effort and generously donated their time in orderfor this workshop to materialise and these documents to beproduced. Also, I would like to thank the Association forDental Education in Europe for continuously supporting thiseffort and, in particular, Ms Majella Giles, who has been aninvaluable help from the very start of these workshops. Also,we are grateful to the European Journal of Dental Education and