A systematic approach to improve oral and maxillofacial surgery education

Abstract

To improve teaching quality and student satisfaction, a new curriculum in Oral Surgery was implemented at Karolinska Institutet in 2007. This paper describes the curriculum change as well as the results regarding quality, satisfaction, cost-effectiveness and workload for teachers and staff. To design the new curriculum, all members of the teaching staff participated in a series of group discussions where problems with the previous curriculum were identified and ideas on how to improve the curriculum were discussed. Cost-effectiveness was evaluated by comparing the number of teaching sessions between the new and the old curriculum. A questionnaire was used to investigate the staffs' perceived change in workload and teaching quality. The students' satisfaction and attitudes to learning was screened for by on-line questionnaires. The large amount of passive observational teaching was considered as the main problem with the old curriculum. Half of these sessions were replaced by either clinical seminars or demonstrations performed in an interactive form. Students rated the new curriculum as a clear improvement. Analyses of time and cost-effectiveness showed a decrease in teaching sessions by almost 50%. Generally, the teachers were more positive towards the changes compared to the non-teaching staff. The students rated the new type of learning activities relatively high, whilst the traditional observational teaching was seen as less satisfactory. They preferred to learn in a practical way and few indicated analytic or emotional preferences. The majority of the students reported a good alignment between the new course curriculum and the final exam.

Student perception of two different simulation techniques in oral and maxillofacial surgery undergraduate training

“…Furthermore the unaltered patient-flow caused uneven learning conditions and was very stressful for the teachers and assisting staff. A new curriculum was developed where the bulk of observational education was replaced by interactive seminars, improving the course [ 11 ].…”

Implementation of a Web‐Based Patient Simulation Program to Teach Dental Students in Oral Surgery

“…The results of this study support the importance of the clinical teacher as a guide, facilitator, and medical expert as suggested by others 10 , 14 . In a previous study that tested supervision by different professionals in a third molar surgery simulator, feedback given by a teacher had the most favorable impact on learning practical skills for students 1 . Another part of that study found that, when compared to paper‐based cases or patients, the program had the advantage of providing immediate feedback to students, concluding that quick feedback was of great importance for effective learning 6 …”

“…Today, patients increasingly demand that students treating them have prior practical training. In addition, a study in which the oral surgery curriculum was changed from traditional education to interactive learning found that cost‐effectiveness and student satisfaction increased 1 . Nevertheless, the gap between theoretical knowledge and practice in the surgery theater remains wide.…”

A computerised third molar surgery simulator – results of supervision by different professionals

“…They proposed that CAI efficacy can be improved if adaption to learner's cognitive and learning styles is taken into account. In a recent study, we have found that dental students were more like doers than analysts . However, all kinds of students need supervision, but as OMS specialists are costly to use in education, we wanted to investigate whether other types of supervisors would suffice.…”