Flipped clinical training: a structured training method for undergraduates in complete denture prosthesis.

PURPOSE: To design and implement flipped clinical training for undergraduate dental students in removable complete denture treatment and predict its effectiveness by comparing the assessment results of students trained by flipped and traditional methods. METHODS: Flipped training was designed by shifting the learning from clinics to learning center (phase I) and by preserving the practice in clinics (phase II). In phase I, student-faculty interactive session was arranged to recap prior knowledge. This is followed by a display of audio synchronized video demonstration of the procedure in a repeatable way and subsequent display of possible errors that may occur in treatment with guidelines to overcome such errors. In phase II, live demonstration of the procedure was given. Students were asked to treat three patients under instructor's supervision. The summative assessment was conducted by applying the same checklist criterion and rubric scoring used for the traditional method. Assessment results of three batches of students trained by flipped method (study group) and three traditionally trained previous batches (control group) were taken for comparison by chi-square test. RESULTS: The sum of traditionally trained three batch students who prepared acceptable dentures (score: 2 and 3) and unacceptable dentures (score: 1) was compared with the same of flipped trained three batch students revealed that the number of students who demonstrated competency by preparing acceptable dentures was higher for flipped training (χ2=30.996 with p<0.001). CONCLUSION: The results reveal the supremacy of flipped training in enhancing students competency and hence recommended for training various clinical procedures.

Integrated case scripts to enhance diagnostic competency.

BACKGROUND: The overwhelmingly high burden of disease and disorder especially in developing countries requires oral physicians to provide optimal dental treatment without complicating individuals' general health. The opportunity for learners to extract the multiple aspects of a systemic condition and to relate them with the presenting complaint in order to devise an appropriate dental treatment plan is limited by time in chair- side teaching. To overcome the necessity of exposing students to real patients with varying degrees of underlying disease, those in medical and nursing education unanimously employ imaginary scenarios similar to real cases. However, such clinical scripts are seldom practiced in dental education, and the prospect of structured integration is almost never addressed. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of applying systematic and integrated case-based discussion in dental education in terms of enhancing five essential skills to novice Indian dental students. METHODS: A mixed- methods study was carried out with thirty graduating third-year students in 5 focus groups. The integrated case-based focused group training occurred in 6 weeks and lasted approximately 90 minutes per discussion. Ten case scripts of hypothetical situations were discussed and five integrated modules were organized as a part of this program. Revised Bloom's taxonomy was adopted to achieve the expected level of competency. RESULTS: Students performance following integrated case-based discussions was improved and their acceptance to this practice is positive. CONCLUSIONS: The present study supports the need for course specific, basic science integrated seminars with concurrent case scripts discussion to enhance students' competencies. Key words:Case scripts, Revised Bloom's taxonomy, chair-side teaching, integrated teaching.