FDI STATEMENT
Basic Dental Training
Adopted by the FDI General Assembly: 18tn September 2003
The primary aim of dental education is to ensure that
competent practitioners are capable of critical thinking and possess the
skills for lifelong learning. The new graduate practitioner must be capable
of carrying out independent dental practice without harm to patients using
modern, appropriate, effective and currently accepted methods of treatment.
Additionally, the new practitioner must be capable of implementing suitable
preventive programmes for individuals and groups in the context of community
orientated programmes. In order to achieve that aim, dental education
must provide the student with a sound clinical training based on humanitarian,
scientific, and evidence based learning principles.
The term clinical competence is applied to a combination
of knowledge, skills and judgement which provide the practitioner with
the competence to undertake a specific clinical task. The knowledge needed
includes an appropriate understanding of molecular biological principles,
as well as anatomical and physiological features and the pathogenesis
of disease processes. It is not simply a technical ability or a prescribed
amount of knowledge, it implies more than this. The acquisition of clinical
competence may be achieved through a diversity of educational and training
programmes. These may be assessed and examined in different ways throughout
the world.
There is not a single curriculum appropriate to achieving
basic clinical competence, therefore the Dental Practice Commission of
the FDI has specifically avoided recommending detailed regulations. Apart
from the required clinical competence, all subjects should form part of
an overall educational philosophy in undergraduate dental education. It
is essential that a comprehensive integrated curriculum is followed to
avoid dominance of certain subjects over others, even though there maybe
variance in emphases from dental school to dental school or from country
to country.
There is a wide variety of dental educational systems
throughout the world. These systems are developed, governed, operated
and applied differently but they should all result in the graduate being
competent to perform nationally or internationally agreed basic clinical
competence covering patient examination assessment and diagnosis, communication
and patient education, ethics and jurisprudence, treatment, medical emergencies
and practice management.
The national dental professional organisations should recommend that regulatory
agencies comply with this description of basic dental training.
This statement should be read in conjunction
with the background paper (GA Binder pages 143- 148)
Main authors: Dr Glaus Munck
Submitted by: FDI Dental Practice Commission
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