Dental Students’ Activities on Outreach Training

Dental Schools are developing new undergraduate curricula, with interdisciplinary outreach placements replacing some of the hospital-based training. Objectives: To record students’ clinical and non-clinical activity on outreach placement. Intervention: Six-week block placement for 20 undergraduate and therapy students in existing primary care clinics, in areas of need, to work supervised by local dentists. Methods: A variety of methods were used: semi-structured interviews with all 20 students by staff independent of the course team; questionnaire-based survey of 17 students; and capture of categorised data on treatment episodes from students’ clinical logbooks. Findings were triangulated by presentation to students and separately to their supervisors for discussions chaired by a second observer, and against peer-run focus groups. Results: Outreach experiences were varied, often novel and frequently developmental for students. They included: gaining greater experience of new types of patients (children, special needs, phobics, asylum seekers, less affluent, drug users, etc.) and their communities; gaining broader clinical experience and alternative approaches; and practicing or observing dentistry and other health care in different settings The need for mechanisms to build in to the outreach programme to encourage greater consistency of experience became apparent. This Team Training in Primary Care Settings Project is National Dental Development Unit funded (grant EL1/EL2) Conclusion: Dental outreach training provides students with valuable learning experience in a range of areas and requires mechanisms to ensure consistent anticipated outcomes.