engleski

Community dentistry outreach program at the University of Zagreb School of Dental Medicine - our first year

Background: In accordance to EU recommendations, Croatian dental education system has abolished the 12 month internship. Previously, it was obligatory after the graduation and was prerequisite to taking national board exam. Its value was in exposing newly graduated dentists to real-life clinical experience and in increasing the number of performed procedures before being eligible to practise independently. Aim: The aim was to find the solution to maintain the competence level of young Croatian dentists who are eligible to practise independently in the circumstances without obligatory 12 month internship. Materials and Methods: We formed new curriculum adding 500 hours of community dental service to our 12th semester. This enedeavour was largely based upon good practices observed from Tromso Dental School (Arctic University Norway), as presented during ADEE Congress (Riga 2014). Zagreb delegation visited Tromso and got familiar with Norwegian experiences in outreach learning. We have performed a selection and education of prospective mentors, designed a set of regulations and requirements, as well as online forms for monitoring the process. Living expenses were secured in cases that students were going outside Zagreb County. The project was funded by the Ministry of regional Development and EU Funds. Results: We have adopted Norwegian outreach learning practises into our circumstances and formed a large network comprising 94 supervised mentors, who are hosting 94 dental. Our paper discusses statistics of dental procedures performed by students in outreach settings, and reflects the process from three viewpoints: students', mentors' and Dental School administrators'. Conclusions: Feedback from the 1st year of implementation showed to be extremely favourabe, with only one exception of a negligent mentor, and one incident during dental treatment performed by a student. Several improvements on various levels were seen: students learn how general dental practice operates including its management ; it provides psychological security ; empowers Dental School's impact on the broader community.

dental education ; outreach learning ; general dental practice

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