Preparing faculty members for significant curricular revisions in a school of dental medicine.
(17/73)
Resistance to change is expected, especially when change involves and impacts many stakeholders. During the past year, the Curriculum Committee at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine has been preparing the dental school for a major curricular revision of its predoctoral program. This article describes how a faculty retreat was designed to gain support for and involvement in this reform process. In particular, it examines the results of a faculty survey that was used to shape the retreat and was developed to determine the faculty's perceived knowledge about instructional design, barriers to innovations in teaching, and the influence of student evaluations and evidence-based dentistry principles on faculty teaching. Having identified strengths and weaknesses and areas of concern among faculty members through the survey, the Curriculum Committee was able to prepare a retreat that addressed faculty needs while simultaneously advancing the movement towards curriculum reform. (+info)
Level of evidence of the value of care in federally qualified health centers for policy making.
(18/73)
Publication bias and its implications for evidence-based clinical decision making.
(21/73)
In 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. Dentistry increasingly depends on evidence-based decision making for treatment planning and therapy. As a result we, as a profession, need to fully appreciate the potential for publication bias to hinder advancements in oral health care by decreasing the availability of scientific evidence and threatening the validity of evidence-based practice. (+info)
What's in a dental practice-based research network? Characteristics of Northwest PRECEDENT dentists, their patients and office visits.
(22/73)
OBJECTIVES: The authors conducted a study to describe the general dentists, practices, patients and patient care patterns of the dental practice-based research network (PBRN) Northwest Practice-based REsearch Collaborative in Evidence-based DENTistry (PRECEDENT). METHODS: Northwest PRECEDENT is a dental PBRN of general and pediatric dentists and orthodontists from five U.S. states in the Northwest: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The authors collected data from general dentists in Northwest PRECEDENT (n = 101) regarding the diagnosis and treatment of oral diseases in a survey with a systematic random sample of patients (N = 1,943) visiting their practices. They also obtained demographic data from the general dentists and their patients. RESULTS: The authors found that 50 percent of the general dentists were 51 to 60 years of age, 14 percent were female and 76 percent were non-Hispanic white. More than one-half (55 percent) of the dentists had practiced dentistry for more than 20 years, 83 percent had private solo practices and 32 percent practiced in rural community settings. The majority (71 percent) of patients visiting the dental practices was in the age range of 18 to 64 years, 55 percent were female and 84 percent were non-Hispanic white. In terms of reasons for seeking dental care, 52 percent of patients overall visited the dentist for oral examinations, checkups, prophylaxis or caries-preventive treatment. In the preceding year, 85 percent of the patients had received prophylaxis, 49 percent restorative treatments, 34 percent caries-preventive treatments and 10 percent endodontic treatments. CONCLUSIONS: Northwest PRECEDENT general dentists are dispersed geographically and are racially and ethnically diverse, owing in part to efforts by network administrators and coordinators to enroll minority dentists and those who practice in rural areas. Estimates of characteristics of dentists and patients in Northwest PRECEDENT will be valuable in planning future studies of oral diseases and treatments. (+info)
ADEA CCI vision focuses on preparing graduates for discoveries of the future.
(23/73)
The vision of the American Dental Education Association's Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education (ADEA CCI) is embodied in its new slogan: building consensus and leading change to prepare graduates for an undiscovered future. The ADEA CCI envisions a future in which dental practice is vastly different from what it is today and dental education must be very different for graduates who face a future of unimaginable scientific discovery. Dental curricula need to change to better prepare today's dental students, not only for the practice of today but also for the challenges they will face in their practices of the future. The goal of "building consensus" is directed toward the many constituencies that work with dental education and its graduates. The ADEA CCI has developed a variety of policy recommendations, strategies, and resources to help policymakers, dental educators, and dental graduates better prepare for this undiscovered future. A key resource is twenty-two commissioned white papers that cover diverse topics, such as curriculum reform, facilitating change, faculty development, student assessment, and academic leadership. (+info)
Survey of Brazilian governmental health agencies shows conflicting recommendations concerning oral hygiene practices for children.
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