Quality assurance in dental education

This paper proposes the development and world-wide use of an electronic dental curriculum which will ensure quality assurance in dental education, in the broadest sense, through the continuous updating of its content and linkages to contemporary resources and databases. This curriculum will need to be reinforced onsite by knowledgeable faculty in the context of patient care delivery with the highest of standards. Two rationales are presented to support the world-wide curriculum concept: one is related to the sophisticated knowledge of science, particularly the biological sciences and its transfer to the oral care environment; the second is related to the progressive role which current developments in information technology allow us to take in the delivery of the curriculum. The paper also addresses the important issue of policy development that will be necessary to ensure continued quality assurance through assessment of this curriculum. We propose to use on a worldwide basis, the system piloted by DENTED, the thematic network project "achieving convergence in standards of output of European Dental Education". The paper concludes by suggesting the next steps for assessing the efficacy of a world-wide electronic curriculum in dental education, supporting development and determining who might maintain this curriculum.