Dentistry: by choice or chance? A questionnaire survey for pre clinical dental students

Historically, Indian education has been elitist. Currently, India has the second largest education system in the world preceded by China. In order to meet the demand for coveted dental education, private dental colleges have sprung across the country, making the access easy for the students to enroll into dental education programmes after their higher secondary education. This has lead to a suspicion whether these dental students had been forced into a course that they did not aspire of and even if they actually chose the career, are they performing as good as they expected to be once the course commences. This questionnaire survey aims at discussing these issues and to prepare the Indian education system at both school and college level to encompass and implement an orientation and motivation program to overcome this.

Prevalence of archaea in chronic periodontitis patients in an Indian population.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of archaea in the subgingival crevices of patients with chronic periodontitis in an Indian population. Materials and Methods: Thirty four chronic periodontitis patients and 16 healthy subjects were included in the study. Thirty four subgingival plaque samples were collected from chronic periodontitis patients, of which 17 samples were from deep pockets and 17 were from shallow pockets. Sixteen subgingival plaque samples were collected from healthy subjects. The presence of archaea in plaque samples was detected by polymerase chain reaction. Results: Prevalence of archaea in chronic periodontitis patients was 29.4% and in healthy subjects was 11.8%, which was not a statistically significant difference. However, prevalence of archaea, in deep periodontal pockets was 47.1%, in shallow periodontal pockets was 11.8% and in healthy sulcus was 12.5%, respectively. Thus, showing a statistically significant difference between prevalence of archaea in deep periodontal pockets (47.1%) and healthy sulcus (12.5%) and also between deep periodontal pockets (47.1%) and shallow pockets (11.8%), respectively. Conclusion: Archaea were detected commonly in severe periodontitis suggesting that these microorganisms might be involved in the pathogenesis of periodontal diseases.