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. 2018 Jun 22;18(1):149.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-018-1258-3.

Internal diseases encountered by dental students while treating dental patients during undergraduate training

Anja Humbert  1 , Petra Schmage  1 , Sigrid Harendza  2
Affiliations

Internal diseases encountered by dental students while treating dental patients during undergraduate training

Anja Humbert et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: The number of internal diseases, disorders and syndromes (IMDDSs) encountered in dental practice is increasing. Dentists report to feel ill prepared by their undergraduate dental training for the management of IMDDSs. To increase the effectiveness of internal medicine training at dental school it might be necessary to focus on IMDDs encountered by dental students. The aim of our study was to identify IMDDSs dental students come across while treating dental patients during the clinical years of their undergraduate training.

Methods: All dental patients treated between April and July 2015 by 116 dental students enrolled at the Medical Faculty of Hamburg University in the semesters 7 to 10 were anonymously analysed retrospectively with respect to age, gender, smoking habits, drinking habits, current or previous diseases, allergies, current medication, dental diagnoses, and dental treatment in the current semester. Identified IMDDSs were clustered and evaluated.

Results: The 116 dental students treated 511 patients with 559 IMDDSs with a median of one IMDDS per patient. The IMDDSs encountered most frequently could be assigned to the subspecialties cardiology, endocrinology/diabetology, and rheumatology. Arterial hypertension occurred most frequently in dental patients, followed by diabetes mellitus type 2, and chronic bronchitis.

Conclusions: We identified the spectrum of IMDDSs encountered by dental students in the clinical years of their undergraduate dental education. Further studies are needed to test the effects of learning internal medicine with an internal medicine course based on the IMDDSs encountered by dental students and including additional IMDDSs specific relevance for dentists.

Keywords: Case-based learning; Dental education; Internal medicine; Learning objectives.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and Ethics Committee of the Chamber of Physicians approval. Patients do not need to give special consent for retrospective analysis of their data records because they sign an agreement for scientific use of their data when treatment is initiated. Students consented in the anonymized analysis of the patients treated by them.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

SH has a position as Section Editor to BMC Medical Education. AH and PS declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Percentage of the number of IMDDSs (0–8) per patient in the dental patients treated by dental students
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Percentage of IMDDSs per subspecialty
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Frequency of IMDDSs in male and female patients
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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