Better pathology education during undergraduate education: Clinical dentists’ expectations

The education curriculum of the faculty of dentistry includes both general pathol­ogy and oral pathology courses. In our planned study, we aimed to determine the needs of dentists who graduated from the faculty of dentistry and received special­isation training for pathology information in their active professional lives and the importance of pathology education according to their fields of specialisation.

Survey questions: Applications were made to 115 dentists who graduated from the faculty of dentistry, received specialist training, and worked in the clinic.

While the benefit of pathology training in the dentist’s professional life was oral and maxillofacial surgery, it was followed by periodontology, radiology, and oral diagnosis specialties. They also stated that they sent samples and evaluated reports in the fields of oral and maxillofacial surgery, periodontology, radiology, and oral diagnosis.

In our study, the areas where specialist physicians benefit from pathology training in the clinic are those where the subjects overlap more with the sections in the training curriculum. It is necessary to provide adequate training in basic medical sciences to train dentists as physicians who do not perceive the patient only in terms of mouth and teeth, but can evaluate the patient as a whole and provide the right guidance at the right time. Integration should be ensured between basic sciences, dentistry, and clinical sciences. For pathology education to be permanent and useful, a curriculum should be designed with innovative teaching methods that are department-specific and practice-based, appropriate to the needs of the clinic.

Dentistry graduates can improve patient outcomes and enhance their personal de­velopment by deepening their understanding of pathology education.