Perspectives
The Case for Change in Dental Education
ADEA Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education: Marsha Pyle, D.D.S.,
M.Ed.; Sandra C. Andrieu, Ph.D.; D. Gregory Chadwick, D.D.S.; Jacqueline E. Chmar,
B.A.; James R. Cole, D.D.S.; Mary C. George, R.D.H., M.Ed.; Gerald N. Glickman, D.D.S.,
J.D.; Joel F. Glover, D.D.S.; Jerold S. Goldberg, D.D.S.; N. Karl Haden, Ph.D.; William D.
Hendricson, M.A., M.S.; Cyril Meyerowitz, D.D.S., Ph.D.; Laura Neumann, D.D.S.; Lisa
A. Tedesco, Ph.D.; Richard W. Valachovic, D.M.D., M.P.H.; Richard G. Weaver, D.D.S.;
Ronald L. Winder, D.D.S.; Stephen K. Young, D.D.S.; Kenneth L. Kalkwarf, D.D.S.
Abstract: This article introduces a series of white papers developed by the ADEA Commission on Change and Innovation (CCI)
to explore the case for change in dental education. This preamble to the series argues that there is a compelling need for rethinking the approach to dental education in the United States. Three issues facing dental education are explored: 1) the challenging
financial environment of higher education, making dental schools very expensive and tuition-intensive for universities to operate
and producing high debt levels for students that limit access to education and restrict career choices; 2) the profession’s apparent
loss of vision for taking care of the oral health needs of all components of society and the resultant potential for marginalization
of dentistry as a specialized health care service available only to the affluent; and 3) the nature of dental school education itself,
which has been described as convoluted, expensive, and often deeply dissatisfying to its students.
Dr. Pyle is Associate Dean for Education, Case School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Andrieu is Associate Dean for Academic
Affairs, Louisiana State University School of Dentistry; Dr. Chadwick is Associate Vice Chancellor for Oral Health, East Carolina
University; Ms. Chmar is Policy Analyst, American Dental Education Association; Dr. Cole is a member of the Commission on
Dental Accreditation; Prof. George is Associate Professor, Department of Dental Ecology, University of North Carolina School
of Dentistry; Dr. Glickman is Chair, Endodontics, Baylor College of Dentistry; Dr. Glover is a member of the Board of Trustees,
American Dental Association; Dr. Goldberg is Dean, Case School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Haden is President, Academy for
Academic Leadership; Mr. Hendricson is Assistant Dean, Educational and Faculty Development, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Dental School; Dr. Meyerowitz is Director, Eastman Dental Center, University of Rochester School of
Medicine and Dentistry; Dr. Neumann is Associate Executive Director for Education, American Dental Association; Dr. Tedesco
is Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in Graduate Studies and Dean, Graduate School, Emory University; Dr. Valachovic is Executive Director, American Dental Education Association; Dr. Weaver is Acting Director, Center for Educational Policy and Research,
American Dental Education Association; Dr. Winder is a member of the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations;
Dr. Young is Dean, College of Dentistry, University of Oklahoma; and Dr. Kalkwarf is Chair of the Commission on Change and
Innovation in Dental Education, President of the American Dental Education Association, and Dean of the University of Texas
Health Science Center at San Antonio Dental School. Direct correspondence to Dr. Marsha Pyle, Associate Dean for Education,
Case School of Dental Education, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106-4905; 216-368-3968 phone; map6@po.cwru.edu.
Reprints of this article will not be available.
Key words: dental school, dental education, curriculum, dental students
T
he rationale for curricular change in dental
education is compelling. Financing of higher
education will remain a challenge for the
foreseeable future, which is critical because dental
education is among the most expensive university
programs. Budget constraints alone present multifaceted difficulties, ranging from those associated with
student diversity and pipeline issues to infrastructure.
The ability to recruit and retain faculty, and to ensure
the quality of faculty worklife, is increasingly difficult. The curriculum at most dental schools is based
on a model of educational delivery that is at least fifty
years old, while emerging science, technology, and
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Journal of Dental Education
disease patterns promise to change oral health care
significantly. Finally, while dental education is subject to the winds that are changing higher education,
dental practice also exists in a tumultuous health care
system that demands reform in the face of an aging
and more ethnically and racially diverse population.
These issues have led some to question the
underpinnings of educational practice and learning
in general. Others question the ability of the profession to sustain itself as a learned profession that
contributes to the mission of research by creating new
knowledge in the university setting. As an introduction to some of dental education’s major challenges,
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this article is a first step in initiating a new dialogue
about the need for transformation in dental education and in galvanizing deliberate action for change
and innovation.
The Environment of Higher
Education and Health Care
The global perspective on trends in dental
education is characterized by financial difficulties
and by loss of vision for the profession. A number
of dental schools are facing financial difficulty due
to external and internal forces in their environments.1
Both private and public dental schools experienced
increases of just over 50 percent in expenses from
1991 to 2001.2 Ultimately, these threats may wipe out
dental schools’ ability to contribute to the research
mission of their parent universities. The importance
of science, research, and scholarship in guiding
change in dental education cannot be minimized.
Otherwise, the profession risks its own de-evolution
to a vocational school program, losing its hallmark
as a learned professsion.3,4 New approaches to dental
school curricula must create ways to enhance the level
of inquiry, research experience, and the applications
of relevant science to clinical problems within academic dentistry and the dental practice community.
Most critical to the need for change is the
profession’s apparent loss of vision for taking care
of the oral health needs of society. Today, there is
an increasing chasm between the principles that we
teach in dental school and the core values that define
the profession. The profession is evolving toward
promotion of high-end specialized clinical services
to the individuals who can afford them, while the
complexity of disease across all populations continues to grow. This type of professional isolation
disregards demographic trends in the population,
diminishes dentistry’s role in primary care, allows
for marginalization of the profession, and hinders
incorporation of dental care models into other health
professions. The risk of isolation and marginalization
is becoming reality.
The Need for Curricular
Change and Innovation
Much has been written about the crisis in health
care and, occasionally, dentistry’s role in it.5,6 Much
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of what has been said about the crisis in health care
is analogous to dental education. Specifically, dental
education could be described as “convoluted, expensive, and often deeply dissatisfying to consumers.”6
What do these adjectives mean?
• Convoluted: The curricula of dental education have
been characterized as overcrowded, unmanageable,
inflexible, disjointed, irrelevant, and lacking in
effective connectivity among basic science, behavioral science, and clinical science applications.
Further, the system is permeated by a culture that
supports memorization of factual knowledge over
reasoning based on evidence and critical thinking
skills.
• Expensive: The cost of dental education leaves
many students with significant debt that limits
options upon graduation and thus may influence
practice choices. This obstacle contributes to the
declining ability of the profession to recruit recent
graduates into academic careers and to attract
young dentists into primary dental care to respond
to the growing oral health needs of a diverse population of patients. The cost may also limit access
to dental education for a diverse population of
applicants, with the result that dental school is
primarily limited to affluent students.
• Dissatisfying to consumers: Students quickly learn
the survival game of dental school, often buying
into the “test file” approach to learning in response
to extreme academic loads. Passive learning environments fail to challenge students’ ability to grow
intellectually and to become critical thinkers and
lifelong learners.
Historical reports suggest that established,
evidence-based, basic elements of curriculum organization and delivery have never capitalized on
educational theory.7,8 As early as the 1930s, cognitivesocial psychologists espoused experiential learning
environments that tie together an integrative perspective combining experience, perception, cognition, and
behavior.7 These theories suggest that experiential
learning creates the opportunity for deep learning on
higher order levels. Jerome Bruner suggested that the
purpose of education is to create levels of curiosity
and skills in inquiry, rather than memorization of
factual knowledge.8
These approaches to learning have yet to be
institutionalized in dental education, perhaps because
changing the usual way we design and deliver curricula causes anxiety, and perhaps because doing
what we know is easy. If students are to move from
memorization of facts to an integrated experiential
Journal of Dental Education ■ Volume 70, Number 9
approach, then current educational programs will
need to reassess their goals, workload, relevancy,
efficiency, and effectiveness. To move away from
an educational environment that rewards memorization and survival game strategies, students must
have time to reflect and think about their learning.
This will demand a different approach to traditional
educational formats and a complete reorganization of
the educational competencies and content delivery.
It has been suggested that a “natural critical learning
environment” must be created that fosters reasoning
from evidence, improves thinking, and develops
inquiry skills.9
What Will Lead to
Systemic Change in Dental
Education?
Often, wide-ranging, systemic change in organizations occurs in response to obvious crises.10 Belief
systems color perceptions of change requirements,
expected impact, and outcomes. A new perspective
on the future must acknowledge that the status quo
cannot sustain the organization, and leaders must
model the vision for change, allay the anxiety that
change brings, and deal with resistance.10
Historical reports informing the profession
and public have long recommended system-wide
change.11-14 Yet, few outcomes in dental education
suggest meaningful change has occurred. Fresh approaches by leaders to remove barriers to systemic
change that allow new business models and innovations to emerge may provide the impetus for the
preservation of dentistry as a learned profession.
Equally needed are forces for change that will sustain
dentistry as a source of new knowledge, discovery,
and innovation. Serious focus on the didactic classroom curriculum, clinical and supporting didactic
preclinical learning experiences, and pedagogy will
be required to sustain vitality in dental education
and research.
The implication here, clearly, extends to faculty
capacity and capability as well. As recruitment and
retention of faculty become more difficult, existing
faculty are asked to do more—and often with less.
Workloads are increasing, and the quality of faculty
worklife is in jeopardy. The exodus of new faculty
and the likely acceleration in retirements will strain
scholarship and make existing models of teaching and
learning unsustainable in an environment of reduced
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Journal of Dental Education
resources. Faculty work and reward systems must be
reframed in light of emerging realities.
Over the next year, the ADEA Commission on
Change and Innovation (CCI) will develop a series of
white papers to explore in detail the case for change
in dental education. CCI will seek to build consensus within the educational community about new
directions that will strengthen dental education and
the profession, so that graduates of academic dental
institutions enter the profession competent to meet
the oral health needs of the public throughout the
twenty-first century and to function as an important
member of an efficient and effective health care team.
CCI’s first white paper, “Educational Strategies Associated with Development of Problem-Solving, Critical Thinking, and Self-Directed Learning,” follows in
this issue of the Journal of Dental Education. Future
white papers will address such topics as the quality
of faculty worklife; student learning and pedagogy;
emerging science and the dental school curriculum;
financing higher education; and the impact of the
changing health care system on dental education.
There are compelling reasons for change in
dental education, now. The opportunity to shape
the destiny of this learned profession must proceed
beyond conversation through leadership to action. If
this does not occur, external forces will be likely to
force change, wanted or unwanted.
REFERENCES
1. Bailit HL, Beazoglou TJ, Formicola AJ, Tedesco L, Brown
LJ, Weaver RG. U.S. state-supported dental schools:
financial projections and implications. J Dent Educ
2006;70(3):246-57.
2. American Dental Association. 2000-2001 survey of
predoctoral dental education. Chicago: American Dental
Association, 2002.
3. Bertolami CN. The role and importance of research and
scholarship in dental education and practice. J Dent Educ
2002;66(8):918-24.
4. Bertolami CN. Disquieting change, extraordinary challenge. J Dent Res 2002;81(5):366.
5. Gladwell M. The moral hazard myth. The New Yorker,
August 29, 2005.
6. Christensen CM, Bohmer R, Kenagy J. Will disruptive innovations cure health care? Harv Business Rev 2000;SeptOct:102-12.
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Harvard University Press, 1966.
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Higher Education, April 9, 2004, B7-B9.
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practice. SELAM Newsletter 2002;5(2):5-9.
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11. Feld MJ, ed. Dental education at the crossroads: challenges
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DC: National Academy Press, 1995.
12. Oral health in America: a report of the surgeon general.
Department of Health and Human Services, USPHS. At:
www.nidcr.nih.gov/sgr/execsumm.htm. Accessed: February 15, 2006.
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13. American Dental Association, Health Policy Resources
Center. Future of dentistry. Chicago: American Dental
Association, 2001.
14. Institute of Medicine. Health professions education: a
bridge to quality. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003.
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