Abstract
In contrast to clinical teaching, Dental public health is unique and challenging because the patient is a population, such as a school, neighbourhood, city or even country. The dental curriculum for undergraduates must prepare them to contribute to the health of both individual patients and for the public health. Graduating dental students will become the healthcare leaders tasked with helping to maintain or improve the health and welfare of the population.
Aim: The purpose of this survey was to assess the curriculum, the teaching-learning experiences and also dental public health based strategies taught at the undergraduate level in some dental schools in Turkey. Ethics approval was granted and agreeing to complete the questionnaire was viewed as consent.
Method: The process used was to review the existing dental public health curriculum in a convenience sample of Turkish dental schools. A questionnaire seeking details of the teaching of dental public health was distributed among 12 dental schools in Turkey.
Results: There was reported to be no department or section of dental public health in six of the dental schools. However, 11 of the dental schools gave education of DPH in the final year of study and this including occasional lectures. 7 of the schools operated outreach visits for the treatment of patients. 3 schools had a DPH programme director or a chairman of a DPH section and all twelve indicated that they plan to extend the teaching of DPH dentistry in the future.
Conclusion: A flexible curriculum is available in some dental schools included in this study. This study demonstrated to need for increased teaching of dental public health topics in those dental schools and a need for further research.
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