Khadija Iqbal, Samra Asif, Ibad-ur Rehman.
BDS Curriculum: Neglected Sibling.
J Pak Dent Assoc Jan ;26(2):79-82.

The medical educationists are emphasizing on the implementation of skills based curriculum which covers the oral health in a broader and global scale. Keeping in mind these things this study was conducted to know opinion of medical students regarding modern educational reforms and the present curriculum taught in their medical colleges. Methodology: This survey was done in medical colleges with four year program in dentistry in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A four-question survey about the format and characteristics of the dental curriculum was circulated among the 200 dental graduates graduating in the year 2014 belonging to different dental colleges in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The respondents expressed their answers in yes or no. Respondents indicated the name of their school and answered survey questions. Descriptive statistics including percentage distribution for each response were used. Responses were recorded separately for all the four years. Results: In response to the question about integration between oral diseases with systemic disease, almost all agreed that their curriculum is disjointed in first and second year. 40% of the students told that some integration is created in third and 30% agreed that the integration is there in fourth year. 20% said that the basic sciences were taught with clinical context in first and second year and was not done in third and fourth year. Exposure of dental students to community and public health services was around 20% in third year and 30% in fourth year. PBL and case based discussions are not used in the dental colleges in all years. Conclusions: The dental curriculum in Pakistan needs to cover a much broader spectrum of diseases as well as patients. Linking the curriculum with modern tools like PBL can improve dental education. The link between the basic and clinical teaching and incorporation of community health can lead to marked shift in educational approach of the medical students. KEYWORDS: M.B.B.S, dentistry, undergraduate, curriculum.

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