122 - The Impact of a Temporal Gap on Dental Residents' Anatomical Knowledge

Poster Board Number: 122
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Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Co-authors:

melissa Quinn - The Ohio State University, College of Medicine

Abstract Body : Introduction. Anatomical subdisciplines are often taught during pre-clinical years of dental education and are not vertically integrated throughout the clinical years. This creates a large temporal gap between the formal anatomy learning and applying gained anatomy knowledge in dental practice and during their dental residency training. This study aims to examine the effect of the temporal gap on dental residents’ anatomical knowledge and whether this time gap impedes dental residents’ ability to recall the anatomy they have learned during pre-clinical years of their dental education.









Methods. (IRB Protocol# 2023E1050).To compare the effect of the temporal gap between learning anatomy in pre-clinical years in dental school and the anatomical knowledge during dental residency programs, the performance of first-year dental students enrolled in an undergraduate dental anatomy course was compared to the performance of dental residents enrolled in an advanced head and neck anatomy course during the Spring 2023 semester at The Ohio State University on a set of 24 anatomical sciences questions. Independent sample t-tests were used to compare the overall performances of first-year dental students to postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) dental residents and to dental residents at different postgraduate years (PGY1-PGY3).









Results. First-year dental students (n = 122) performed significantly higher than first-year dental residents (n = 6) on the same 24 integrated anatomical sciences questions (t = 7.572, df = 126, p < .001). Additionally, first-year dental students performed significantly higher than dental residents at different postgraduate years (n = 10) on the same set of questions (t= 8.570, df = 130, p < .001).









Conclusion. Preliminary results indicate that dental residents have less anatomical knowledge than first-year dental students which raises a concern of whether their knowledge is sufficient for safe patient care. Previous studies linked the decrease in dental students’ anatomical knowledge to the increase of medico-legal disputes.These findings could be attributed to the large temporal gap from first learning anatomy in pre-clinical years of undergraduate dental education and pursing a dental specialty training.









Significance/Implication. The findings of the poor anatomical knowledge of dental residents raises a concern for patient safety and should encourage dental residency program directors to consider implementing an anatomy course to refresh their residents’ anatomical knowledge.