Predoctoral Course Research Articles

A generalizable teaching assistant training module for predoctoral courses: A needs assessment.

A generalizable teaching assistant training module for predoctoral courses: A needs assessment.

Introducing dental students to dental public health: An analysis of US predoctoral course syllabi.

Dental public health competencies in predoctoral dental education ensure that students have the skills to succeed in an increasingly complex professional environment. This study examined existing public health curricula in US dental education and their alignment with national recommendations from the American Association of Public Health Dentistry (AAPHD) and guidance from the Healthy People Curriculum Task Force for health professions education programs. We contacted all US dental schools (N = 66) in November 2020-January 202 and requested syllabi for schools' first course with dental public health content. We received 34 syllabi, which provided textual data for content analysis. The authors used an initial content analysis tool to extract descriptive course characteristics. Then, direct and emergent coding was performed to summarize course content. Direct codes included the 23 dental public health topics specified by AAPHD recommendations. Uncategorized content was coded using an inductive approach to identify emergent course themes. Frequently covered topics included principles of dental public health (79% of syllabi) and access to care (79%). "Health disparities" was the most common emergent theme, with 50% of courses including related content. There was little consistency in how courses approached each topic. For example, the topic "access to care" covered healthcare delivery systems, determinants of health, legislative reform, and advocacy. Dental public health was often taught alongside unrelated content. Recommendations for dental public health competencies should be updated to include new educational priorities, align with current national recommendations, and align with Commission on Dental Accreditation Standards more clearly.

Patient‐Centered Communication: Exploring the Dentist's Role in the Era of e‐Patients and Health 2.0

In today's digital era, people are increasingly relying on the Internet-including social media-to access health information and inform their health decisions. This article describes an exploratory initiative to better understand and define the role of dentists in patient education in the context of e-patients and Health 2.0. This initiative consisted of four phases. In Phase I, an interdisciplinary expert advisory committee was assembled for a roundtable discussion about patients' health information-seeking behaviors online. In Phase II, a pilot case study was conducted, with methods and analysis informed by Phase I recommendations. Phase III consisted of a debriefing conference to outline future areas of research on modernizing health communication strategies. In Phase IV, the findings and working theories were presented to 75 dental students, who then took a survey regarding their perspectives with the objective of guiding potential curriculum design for predoctoral courses. The results of the survey showed that the validity of online content was often secondary to the strength of the network sharing it and that advocacy online could be more effective if it allowed for emotional connections with peers rather than preserving accuracy of the information. Students expressed high interest in learning how to harness modern health communications in their clinical care since the role of the dentist is evolving from giving information to giving personalized guidance against the backdrop of an often contradictory modern information environment. The authors recommend that the dental profession develop patient-centered health communication training for predoctoral students and professional development and continuing education for practicing professionals.

Acceptability and perceived effectiveness of web-based self-instruction in clinical orthodontics

For a predoctoral course in advanced clinical orthodontics, we evaluated the acceptability to students (how well did you like it?) and the perceived effectiveness (how well did it help you learn?) of Web-based self-instruction plus small-group seminars. On a 10-point Likert scale, median scores for acceptability and effectiveness of the self-instructional modules and seminars were nine. More than half the students rated the modules as excellent, and two-thirds rated the seminars as excellent. No students rated either the modules or the seminars as poor. With the use of structured seminar outlines, there were no significant differences in seminar scores among the seminar leaders. Compared with their predecessors who had a traditional lecture course, students who had the new self-instructional course were less likely to report either the positive or negative extremes in confidence about their ability to recognize treatment alternatives for orthodontic problems. The results indicate that Web-based self-instruction plus small-group seminars coordinated by a course leader is at least as effective as traditional lectures. This approach offers a possible way to share faculty among orthodontic departments for both pre- and postdoctoral education, as a way to help overcome faculty shortages.

Using the Borsuk-Ulam theorem: lectures on topological methods in combinatorics and geometry

A number of important results in combinatorics, discrete geometry, and theoretical computer science have been proved using algebraic topology. While the results are quite famous, their proofs are not so widely understood. They are scattered in research papers or outlined in surveys, and they often use topological notions not commonly known among combinatorialists or computer scientists. This book is the first textbook treatment of a significant part of such results. It focuses on so-called equivariant methods, based on the Borsuk-Ulam theorem and its generalizations. The topological tools are intentionally kept on a very elementary level (for example, homology theory and homotopy groups are completely avoided). No prior knowledge of algebraic topology is assumed, only a background in undergraduate mathematics, and the required topological notions and results are gradually explained. At the same time, many substantial combinatorial results are covered, sometimes with some of the most important results, such as Kneser's conjecture, showing them from various points of view. The history of the presented material, references, related results, and more advanced methods are surveyed in separate subsections. The text is accompanied by numerous exercises, of varying difficulty. Many of the exercises actually outline additional results that did not fit in the main text. The book is richly illustrated, and it has a detailed index and an extensive bibliography. This text started with a one-semester graduate course the author taught in fall 1993 in Prague. The transcripts of the lectures by the participants served as a basis of the first version. Some years later, a course partially based on that text was taught by G\unter M. Ziegler in Berlin, who made book is based on a thoroughly rewritten version prepared during a pre-doctoral course I taught at the ETH Zurich in fall 2001. Most of the material was covered in the course: Chapter 1 was assigned as an introductory reading text, and the other chapters were presented in approximately 30 hours of teaching (by 45 minutes), with some omissions throughout and with only a sketchy presentation of the last chapter.

Fourth‐Year Clinical Scenarios at Harvard School of Dental Medicine

T he following scenarios were developed as part of an eight-week, fourth-year predoctoral course at Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) named “Advanced Dentistry RotationCore,” taught by Dr. Franson Tom. As the course title implies, students actively participated in weekly seminars on advanced dentistry topics. The seminars required prior preparation of student OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examinations), so that discussion could be student-driven about either first-hand clinical experiences or equivalent published situations.

The clinical‐pathologic forum in oral pathology

A clinical-pathologic "forum" has been employed for the past three years as the laboratory component of the predoctoral course in oral pathology at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine. In addition to instruction in oral histopathology, this format provides an effective matrix for the development of descriptive skills and diagnostic discipline in clinical problem solving. The method is described and discussed.