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First consensus workshop on the development of a European Curriculum in Cariology

2011; Wiley; Volume: 15; Issue: s1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1600-0579.2011.00707.x

1600-0579

A. Schulte, Nigel Pitts,

Dental Research and COVID-19

In view of the fact that prevalence of dental caries is still high in many populations of both children and adults worldwide at a time when caries management strategies are changing, the European Organisation for Caries Research (ORCA) responded to an increasing demand to provide its membership and the dental schools in Europe and beyond with a guideline or a framework document on the education in cariology. Furthermore, a well structured education in cariology is deemed necessary because preventive and surgical therapy of caries will remain a predominant task for future dentists. Thus, in 2006, the ORCA Board nominated several senior colleagues from different European countries (and even from countries beyond Europe) to form a ‘Cariology Curriculum Committee’ which has been chaired by Andreas G. Schulte from Heidelberg University Dental School. This committee started work in 2007 and developed during 2008 a questionnaire on education in cariology in dental schools which was sent in 2009 to all European dental schools. The findings from the questionnaires established that the term ‘cariology’ is understood in nearly all European Dental Schools to include all aspects of hard tissue disorders, such as dental erosion and non-erosive dental wear and this served as basis for the definition of cariology in the subsequent articles. Inspired by the feedback from the returned questionnaires, ORCA and the Association of Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) decided to cooperate so that the ORCA Cariology Curriculum Committee became a joint ORCA/ADEE project. One milestone of this fruitful cooperation was to convene the first consensus workshop on the development of a European Curriculum for Cariology. This ORCA/ADEE workshop was held between 27th and 30th June 2010 in Berlin, Germany (Fig. 1). The scope of this workshop was to develop a European Core Curriculum in Cariology for undergraduate dental students on the basis of current scientific evidence and international consensus on the current and future educational needs in the fields of cariology. On invitation 75 cariologists from 23 European and four American countries attended this workshop and took part in a structured consensus process. Each attendee worked in one of five different workgroups to discuss and identify key aspects relevant for cariology, dental erosion and non-erosive wear (Fig. 2). The results of their deliberations were presented incrementally in plenary sessions at the end of each workshop day in order to build agreement on rational and essential competencies for the overall curriculum document. Organisers photo (from left to right): Cornelia Schach, Falko Frese, Andreas Schulte, Tanja Schamma. Working Groups Chairs photo (from left to right): Wolfgang Buchalla, Marie-Charlotte Huysmans, Andreas Schulte, Nigel Pitts, Christian Splieth. Together with the decision to organise this workshop the Cariology Curriculum Committee agreed with the Boards of ORCA and ADEE to publish the proceedings and results of the consensus workshop. This supplement to the European Journalof Dental Education contains the outcomes from that workshop held in Berlin in June 2010. The Cariology Curriculum Committee acknowledges with great respect the generous support for the Berlin workshop and this published supplement provided by the following charity bodies and companies: Colgate, GABA, German Dental Chamber, GC Europe, GlaxoSmithKline, Heidelberg University Dental School, Ivoclar Vivadent, Special Olympics, Stiftung Innovative Zahnmedizin and 3MEspe. The fact that an important mission for the education in cariology has been accomplished by having established a European Core Curriculum in cariology for undergraduate dental students, should not let us forget that support for continuing and post-graduate education in cariology is also necessary and will have to be addressed in future. Nevertheless, it should be highlighted, that the European Core Curriculum in Cariology for undergraduate dental students covers a wide range of important aspects by including basic sciences, concepts of evidence-based dentistry, epidemiology, public health, risk assessment, detection, diagnosis, decision-making, preventive therapy and minimally invasive as well as advanced surgical treatment. The members of the Cariology Curriculum Committee and the guest editors of this supplement hope that this core curriculum document and the reports focusing on the main domains of cariology will provide sustainable support for dental schools as well as for their lecturers in cariology. The authors confirm no conflicts of interests.