This 2009 study of dental school curricula follows a similar one conducted in 2002-03. Through a web-based survey, the authors gathered information from dental schools about 1) past trends in curricular change over seven years; 2) current changes under way in dental school curricula; 3) significant challenges to curricular innovation; and 4) projected future trends in curricular change and innovation. Fifty-five schools (fifty U.S. and five Canadian) responded to the survey for a response rate of 86 percent. In addition to background information, the survey requested information in four broad areas: curriculum format, curriculum assessment, curriculum innovation, and resources needed for curriculum enhancement. Forty-nine percent of the respondents defined their curriculum format as primarily organized by disciplines. Half of the respondents reported the use of problembased and case-reinforced learning for a section or specific component of some courses. In a significant change from the 2002-03 study, a high proportion (91 percent) of the responding schools require community-based patient care by all students, with just over half requiring five or more weeks of such experience. Competency-based education to prepare an entry-level general dentist seems well established as the norm in responding dental schools. Forty-three percent or less of the responding schools indicated that their students participate with other health professions education programs for various portions of their educational experience. Since the 2002-03 survey, dental schools have been active in conducting comprehensive curriculum reviews; 65 percent indicated that their most recent comprehensive curriculum review is currently under way or was conducted within the past two years. Respondents indicated that the primary reasons for the configuration of the current curriculum were "perceived success" (it works), "compatibility with faculty preferences," "faculty comfort," and "capacity/feasibility." Key catalysts for curricular change were "findings of a curriculum review we conducted ourselves," students' feedback about curriculum, and administration and faculty dissatisfaction. There was an increase in the percentage of schools with interdisciplinary courses, especially in the basic sciences since 2002-03, but no change in the use of problem-based and case-reinforced learning in dental curricula. Respondents reported that priorities for future curriculum modification included creating interdisciplinary curricula that are organized around themes, blending the basic and clinical sciences, provision of some elements of core curricula in an online format, developing new techniques for assessing competency, and increasing collaborations with other health professions schools. Respondents identified training for new faculty members in teaching skills, curriculum design, and assessment methods as the most critical need to support future innovation.Dr.

Ninety-seven children who were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia before 10 years of age and treated with chemotherapy alone, chemotherapy plus 1800-cGy cranial irradiation (RT), or chemotherapy plus 2400-cGy RT were evaluated for effects of therapy on dentofacial development. All patients were seen at least 5 years postdiagnosis. Dental abnormalities were determined from panoramic radiographs, and craniofacial evaluations were made from lateral cephalometric radiographs. Ninety-one (94%) of all patients and 41 (100%) of patients younger than 5 years of age at diagnosis had abnormal dental development. The severity of these abnormalities was greater in children who received treatment before 5 years of age and in those who received RT. Observed dental abnormalities included tooth agenesis, arrested root development, microdontia, and enamel dysplasias. Craniofacial abnormalities occurred in 18 of 20 (90%) of those patients who received chemotherapy plus 2400-cGy RT before 5 years of age. Mean cephalometric values of this group showed significant deficient mandibular development. The results of this study suggest that the severity of dentofacial-developmental abnormalities secondary to antileukemia therapy are related to the age of the patient at the initiation of treatment and the use of cranial RT.

Academic dentists and members of the practice community have been hearing, for more than a decade, that our educational system is in trouble and that the profession has lost its vision and may be wavering in the achievement of its goals. A core of consistently recommended reforms has framed the discussion of future directions for dental education, but as yet, most schools report little movement toward implementation of these reforms in spite of persistent advocacy. Provision of faculty development related to teaching and assessment strategies is widely perceived to be the essential ingredient in efforts to introduce new curricular approaches and modify the educational environment in academic dentistry. Analyses of the outcomes of efforts to revise health professions curricula have identiied the availability and effectiveness of faculty development as a predictor of the success or failure of reform initiatives. This article will address faculty development for purposes of enhancing teaching effectiveness and preparing instructors for potential new roles associated with curriculum changes. Its overall purpose is to provide information and insights about faculty development that may be useful to dental schools in designing professional growth opportunities for their faculty. Seven questions are addressed: 1) What is faculty development? 2) How is faculty development accomplished? 3) Why is faculty development particularly important in dental education? 4) What happens when faculty development does not accompany educational reform? 5) Why are teaching attitudes and behaviors so dificult to change? 6) What outcomes can be expected from faculty development? and 7) What does the available evidence tell us about the design of faculty development programs? Evidence from systematic reviews pertaining to the teaching of evidence-based dentistry, strategies for continuing professional education, and the Best Evidence in Medical Education review of faculty development outcomes are presented to answer this question: does faculty development enhance teaching effectiveness? Characteristics consistently associated with effective faculty development are described.

Objectives-The purpose of this study was to determine the validity of a self-reported periodontal disease measure for use in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.Methods-Participating dentists responded to the question "Have you had periodontal disease with bone loss?" Radiographs obtained from 140 participants were evaluated for bone loss at 32 posterior sites and used as the standard. A site was positive if it had bone loss >2 mm and/or complete loss of crestal lamina dura. To avoid falsely classifying participants as positive, three blinded examiners independently evaluated each participant's radiographs. An a priori decision rule was used to classify a participant positive if all examiners independently assessed the same two or more sites positive.Results-The validity of the self-reported measure was good among dentists, with positive and negative predictive values of 0.76 and 0.74, respectively. Among nondentists, the self-reported measure showed discriminatory power by confirming associations with known risk factors such as age and smoking.Conclusions-Dentists have a good perception of their periodontal status, and there is reasonable consensus among dentists regarding the threshold for defining periodontal disease.This paper was presented at the IADR meeting in Singapore on July 1, 1995. Only one study in the literature reported using a self-reported periodontal measure. However, the validity of the measure was not assessed (9). HHS Public AccessThis paper describes the validity of a self-reported measure of periodontal disease history among dentists participating in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). This measure is being evaluated for use in studying the associations of periodontal disease with diet and systemic diseases in this population. It is reasonable to expect dentists to value and maintain good dental care, be well aware of their dental condition, and thus be knowledgeable and able to report their periodontal status. Hence this initial validation study was limited to dentists because the validity is expected to be lower among other health professionals.The self-reported measure consisted of the response to a single question: "Have you had periodontal disease with bone loss?" Since almost all adults have experienced some amount of bone loss, a threshold is generally defined in order to have a measure with some discriminatory power; hence, mild disease usually is ignored (10, 11). There is no universally accepted threshold for periodontal bone loss and no definition was provided in the questionnaire. The threshold was left to the judgment of each participant. Since the selfreported measure was based on diagnoses by different dentists across the country, the validity of this measure provides an estimate of the degree of consensus among dentists regarding the threshold for defining periodontal bone loss. Validation of this measure also provides an estimate of the periodontal status of this population of US dentists.We assessed the validity of this measure using radiographs ...