Choosing Periodontology for Specialty Specialization: Perspective of Dental Undergraduate Students.

BACKGROUND: The attitudes of dental students to study a particular specialty of dentistry in post-graduation are of great importance as these facilitate workforce planning in the dental sector. AIM AND OBJECTIVE: To assess the attitude of dental students towards choosing periodontology as their future career and to explore demographic variables that affect their choice. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey based on a questionnaire was conducted, including students of the third and fourth years and interns of the dental college. Twenty-seven questions, graded on a Likert scale (5-point) were included in the questionnaire, and the responses were categorised via three attitudes: negative (score 0-21), neutral (score 22-44) and positive (score 45-64). The Chi-square test for proportions was used to examine the differences between groups. RESULTS: Among 114 participants, 53 (46.5%) were males and 61 (53.5%) were females. One-third of the respondents had a positive attitude towards selecting periodontology as their future career, and the majority had a neutral perspective, with a few students having a negative attitude (20.2%). Out of the total, 34.2% of respondents had a positive attitude, and 45.6% showed a neutral attitude or perspective. CONCLUSION: Efforts should be intensified, and undergraduate (UG) students should be motivated by broadening the scope of the field in the UG curriculum by the dental council so that the students show considerable interest in pursuing the field as their future career.

Comparative evaluation of tooth surface roughness caused by three different powered toothbrushes and a novel manual toothbrush -An SEM and AFM study.

BACKGROUND: Toothbrush is the most frequently used tool for mechanical plaque control. Variety of manual and powered toothbrushes are available in the market, and it is often a dilemma for a common man that which one to choose among the wide range. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate and compare the tooth surface roughness caused by three different powered toothbrushes. METHOD: In total, 160 samples comprising of 80 enamel and cementum each were equally and randomly divided into four groups: Group 1 multi-directional powered toothbrushing; Group 2 oscillating/rotating/pulsating powered tooth brushing; Group 3 sonic powered tooth brushing; and Group 4 manual tooth brushing. They were further sub-divided equally into Control and Test. The Test samples were brushed for 2 min every day for a period of 1 month. The prepared samples were evaluated for surface roughness using scanning electron microscope at 1000 × magnification and atomic force microscope at the nanoscale. RESULT: A statistically significant difference was seen in the enamel and cementum roughness between multi-directional tooth brush group and sonic (P = 0.00); multi-directional tooth brush group and manual tooth brush group (P = 0.00); oscillating tooth brush group and sonic group (P = 0.00); oscillating tooth brush group and manual tooth brush group (P = 0.00); and sonic group and manual tooth brush group (P = 0.00). CONCLUSION: The surface microroughness caused by tooth brushing was found to be least using multi-directional and oscillating/rotational/pulsating powered toothbrush, followed by sonic powered toothbrush and maximum in manual toothbrush.