Abstract:

The main objective of dental education is to help students develop their clinical skills. The clinical training covering the three-quarters of the overall dental curriculum focuses mainly on developing the psychomotor skills required for restorative and prosthetic procedures. Dental students exercise a series of previously defined professional skills under the supervision in their faculty clinics. Preclinical training using manicins as a simulated patient necessary for a humanistic education standards is usually limited to restorative procedures. Preclinical education held in laboratories do not usually support students to gain professional and interprofessional experiences related to patient relationships, control of infection and the steps of clinical procedures. In this review study, today's preclinical and clinical training models such as virtual reality, computer-based assessments, self-evaluating, standardized patients, community-based clinical training and case completion model are being discussed to be able to make some suggestions for improving skills of dental students.

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