Exploring the similarities and differences between Chinese and American dental education with Harvard University School of Dentistry as a case study
In order to better explore and improve the form of dental education in China, we take Harvard University School of Dentistry as a case study to compare Chinese and American dental education in terms of admission requirements, academic system and curriculum, teaching mode and teaching methods, clinical practice, etc. We hope that through comparative study, we can find out that American dental Through the comparative study, we hope to find out what is worthy of study and reference for dental education in the United States, and to provide inspiration for the reform of dentistry teaching and globalization of dentistry education in China.
Modern dental education in China has a history of more than 100 years, while dental education in the United States has a history of 172 years. In order to better explore and improve the form of dentistry education in China, we now take Harvard University School of Dentistry as a case study to compare dentistry education in China and the United States, hoping that through We hope that through the comparative study, we can find the places of American dental education that are worthy of learning and reference for China’s dental education, and provide inspiration for the reform of dentistry teaching and globalization of dentistry education in China.
1.Comparison of entry requirements
The students of dental schools in China are selected through the national higher education entrance examination, and most of them are fresh high school graduates, and the admission results are the only criteria for admission. U.S. dental schools are more like vocational education, requiring applicants to have a four-year undergraduate degree from another professional university. Admission to dental school is accomplished through a student application and college interview process. Applicants are required to have taken relevant basic medical and biological courses in college, such as biology, physics, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, etc., and are required to take a special dental admissiontest (DAT) [1,2], the results of which will be an important admission criterion. Applicants who pass the initial screening will be asked to attend an interview organized by the dental school, which is conducted by a panel of experts from the hospital’s professorial board to examine all aspects of the student’s abilities [3]. For example, the Harvard School of Dentistry places a higher value on the organizational and leadership skills and research abilities of interviewees, with the aim of training leaders in the dental profession. Application to dental schools in the United States is more difficult, and students need to pass a rigorous screening process before they can finally be admitted, for example, Harvard Dental School admits 35-40 students each year, but there are more than 2000 applicants.
2.The setting of academic system
The current common academic structure of China’s dental schools includes 3-year specialist, 5-year undergraduate, 7-year master’s degree and 8-year master’s degree. After graduation, all of them can obtain dental assistant license or dental license to start dental medical work. You can also pursue a master’s or doctoral degree in dentistry after your undergraduate degree. Dental schools in the U.S. are usually 4-year programs, with the first 2 years of study in medical specialties, and the second 2 years of study in dental specialties and clinical practice on the one hand. In addition, many dental schools in the United States also have specialist training programs, including oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, prosthodontics, orthodontics and other different specialties, and the program usually lasts for 2 to 4 years, and after graduation, one can obtain a specialist license and become a specialist with specific specialties [4].
3, Comparison of study contents
Most of the students in our dental school will study chemistry, biology, and various courses of basic medicine in the first 2 years after enrollment, and clinical medicine and dentistry specialty courses in the 3rd to 4th years, and finally enter clinical practice because they are mostly enrolled directly from high school without relevant medical and biological foundation. The number of hours of specialized dental courses in China is basically below 30%, and the sum of basic medical courses and clinical medicine courses is generally greater than that of specialized dental courses [5]. At the graduate level, students are mainly under the supervision of their supervisors for related professional studies, including clinical work, scientific research and related courses. Students at Harvard Dental School will take basic medical courses such as anatomy, physiology, pathology, and microbiology in the first 2 years of dental school because they have already taken basic courses in chemistry and biology at the university level. In the second two years of dental school, students will learn the professional knowledge of dentistry and participate in clinical practice. In the United States, dental specialty hours account for about 60%-75% of the total hours [3], and both public basic and clinical medicine hours are lower. The study of the specialist stage is similar to the postgraduate stage of dentistry education in China, which are under the guidance of instructors for clinical, research and related professional courses.
4.Comparison of teaching mode
4.1 Curriculum
Dental education in China belongs to a branch of higher education, with the general characteristics of Chinese higher education, that is, students study different courses every day, each subject 1~2 times a week for theory classes, 1~2 times a week for laboratory classes, usually, in addition to a small amount of homework, only half-term or final subject passing examinations, such a curriculum arrangement is conducive to students to fully absorb the knowledge learned that day, and different daily The change of subjects each day helps to keep students’ interest in learning, and students do not have much pressure to study after class, but this teaching model lacks management of students’ efficiency and effectiveness. The curriculum of Harvard Dental School, on the other hand, is quite different from ours. Students study a certain subject intensively for a period of time, such as physiology, and students study physiology every day for 2-3 months, with theory classes in the morning and laboratory studies in the afternoon, and then take a final exam after the intensive study of physiology, and then concentrate on the next subject after the exam. Harvard students are given many assignments after each theory class, including group discussions outside of class, reading from reference books, and an average of one quiz per 3-D class and one major quiz per week, all of which count toward the final subject grade. This mode of teaching is fast-paced, and students are under great pressure to learn and have a heavy study load during the week.
4.2PBL and CBL teaching
The teaching model of Harvard Dental School is characterized by PBL (problem-based teaching) and CBL (example-based teaching). These two teaching modes are a teaching mode established by the actual clinical problems or actual cases, combined with clinical and practical applications, and revelatory teaching as a method. Students at Harvard Dental School have a large number of class hours dedicated to PBL and CBL teaching, where students are divided into groups of 6 to 8 students to discuss a problem or case under the guidance of the instructor, who will grade the students for their motivation and presentation, which will eventually count towards the overall grade for the course. In contrast, China’s dental education is still widely used fill-in knowledge indoctrination type education model, this model can teach a large amount of systematic knowledge in a short period of time, but the students are in a passive acceptance position, the subjective initiative can not be effectively mobilized. At present, many domestic dental colleges and universities have started to try to adopt modular teaching, PBL and CBL teaching methods to teach theory and laboratory courses, and the teaching quality has been significantly improved, and students’ subjective initiative has been fully stimulated, but the proportion of PBL and CBL courses in theory and laboratory courses is still low.
4.3 Use of textbooks
Most of the textbooks used by dentistry schools in China are unified nationwide and are the main materials for students to learn, and the syllabus arrangement and the content of teachers’ classes are also based on the textbooks, but because of the slow update of textbooks and poor timeliness, it is difficult for teaching to be at the forefront of the discipline; in contrast, there is basically no unified textbook in all major dental schools in the United States, and the textbook recommended by the school is more like a reference For example, the faculty of Harvard Dental School will give students a large number of printed lecture notes before class, and the lecture content will be based on the lecture notes, and the textbook will be used as the material for reading outside of class, so the students of Harvard Dental School must do a lot of reading outside of class, including the reading of textbooks and other reference books, in addition, the faculty will also add the latest academic progress to the lecture notes to ensure the timeliness of the knowledge taught [8].
4.4 Exam topics
The examination questions of Harvard Dental School are also different from those of Chinese dental schools, which are mostly theoretical summary questions that focus on the students’ mastery of specific theoretical points; whereas the examination questions of Harvard Dental School are case-based, and the students are free to elaborate and analyze their knowledge for specific cases. Based on the students’ analysis of the cases, the teacher can understand the students’ mastery of their knowledge and the extent of their reading outside the classroom.
By comparing the respective advantages of Harvard Dental School and our dental school in terms of teaching mode, we can get the following insights: to increase the management of students’ study, to appropriately increase learning pressure and competition, to improve the evaluation system and to promote the PBL and CBL teaching mode will be one of the goals of the teaching reform of dentistry in China.
5.Comparison of clinical practice
In the last year of undergraduate study, dentistry students in China will enter the clinical internship, which is usually a rotation of various departments and clinical operations under the guidance of the teaching staff of each department. Due to the large population and abundant sources of disease in China, internship students have access to a large number of patients and more hands-on opportunities, but it is also due to the large number of students and the busy clinical work that the lead teachers are unable to provide one-on-one hands-on clinical guidance, coupled with the distrust of some patients to their fellow interns, students usually cannot complete complete complete cases independently, and key treatment steps still need to be completed by the lead teachers themselves [9 ]. In contrast, at Harvard Dental School, the internship students work in a dedicated teaching clinic, and the school offers a special price discount for patients who register for teaching. Due to the small number of patients, each student has a limited number of patients to treat during the internship phase, and students are learning dental expertise while entering clinical practice, and are in a learning-by-doing phase, so usually a patient has to go through several follow-up visits and take several months to complete treatment, and the teaching faculty will not replace the student in clinical practice until it is absolutely necessary, so although they see fewer cases Therefore, although the number of cases seen is low, students can learn the relevant professional knowledge and operation skills systematically from each case, and the cases are operated strictly according to the treatment standards.
Taking this as a lesson, in the future clinical teaching reform, we should strengthen the guidance and management of students’ clinical operation, formulate detailed operation specification and standard, require not only the quantity of completed cases but also the quality of completed cases for students’ clinical practice, arrange regular clinical case discussion, so that students can learn the most solid clinical practice skills from each case.
6.Graduation requirements and the acquisition of medical license
Students of our dental school can graduate after passing the tests of all relevant courses and completing a certain number of cases in clinical practice during their study period and passing the examination. After graduating and working for a certain number of years, they can apply for the dental assistant practitioner or dental practitioner qualification examination, which is divided into a written examination and an operational examination, with the written examination focusing on basic medicine, clinical medicine and related professional knowledge of dentistry, and the operational examination examining the candidate’s dental clinical operation ability. Clinical licensure is obtained by passing both the written and operative exams [10]. The graduation requirements for dental students in the United States are similar to ours in that they are required to pass all specialty exams, complete the required number of credits, and complete the required number of cases to graduate. The U.S. dental licensing examination is also divided into a written examination and an operative examination. The written exam is a national exam, divided into two parts, and students can take the first part of the written exam after the second year, which examines basic medical knowledge; in the fourth year, they can take the second part of the written exam, which focuses on dental expertise. The practical exams are usually taken before graduation in the fourth year. After passing all exams, you can apply for a dental license and practice medicine after graduation. After studying as a specialist, you can also apply for a specialist license.
7.Conclusion
As a world-class university, Harvard University’s dental education is also world-class, and the deans of many dental schools in the United States have graduated from Harvard Dental School. This paper takes Harvard University School of Dentistry as an example and compares the dental education in China and the United States, and finds many places worthy of our learning and reference. By comparing and complementing the shortcomings, it is expected to provide ideas and references for the reform of dentistry education in China in various aspects such as curriculum, teaching mode and clinical practice, and lay the foundation for the globalization of dentistry in China.