A View of Challenges to the Dental Education Process - Then & Now.

Abstract

Dental education today tends to focus on what is provided online in the form of curriculums, handouts, circulated student notes. and mock tests, along with videos from various sources, some of which can be questionable. Often today's dental students choose not to attend lectures as information is supposedly gleaned from the above sources. What is all but absent for the student is a focus on dental books and literature as the main source of their educational process. The present generation will therefore not be labeled as were the students at the turn of the 20 century who may have been erroneously identified as bookworms [124-yr Editorial Below - Dominion Dental Journal 1900;12(12):411]. However, current pedagogical endeavors appear to suffer from the same historical issues as those in the late 1800s and early 1900s with a total focus on mechanical skills without the in-depth exploration and understanding of the science and rationale for such applications. Is it true that we are now training, as opposed to educating, Doctors of Mechanical Dentistry (DMD) and not "journal/bookworms?" The future will tell!