Inspired by reports of successful outcomes in health profession education literature, peer learning has progressively grown to become a fundamental characteristic of health profession curricula. Many studies, however, are anecdotal or philosophical in nature, particularly when addressing the effectiveness of assessments in the context of peer learning. This commentary provides an overview of the rationale for using group assessments in the basic sciences curriculum of health profession programs and highlights the challenges associated with implementing group assessments in this context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWomen's health, including oral health, is an evolving science with foundation knowledge from many disciplines. Key milestones, particularly in the last decade, provide a roadmap towards the necessary inclusion of gender into dental practice. Such focus is especially important for the evolving role of oral health care providers as primary health care providers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe College of Dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago has reorganized its predoctoral curriculum to better integrate biomedical, clinical, and behavioral sciences using a systems-based framework. The resulting D.M.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary objective of the preclinical dental anatomy course in the predoctoral dental curriculum is to introduce students to cognitive and psychomotor skills related to the morphology and spatial and functional relationships of human dentition. Traditionally, didactic content for the subject is found in textbooks and course manuals and summarized by the faculty in lectures to the entire class. Psychomotor skills associated with recognition and reproduction of tooth morphology are traditionally learned by examining preserved tooth specimens and their cross-sections, combined with producing two-dimensional line drawings and carving teeth from wax blocks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this review, we define and discuss several aspects of publication bias: why it occurs; its importance to dental practitioners, dental educators, and dental students; its potential to affect treatment decisions; and how it can be detected. In addition, we briefly discuss attempts to reduce publication bias. Ideally, clinical decision making should be based on the totality of evidence and not on a sample biased by the selective publication of studies that show significant results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF