Predoctoral prosthodontic curricula on removable partial dentures: survey of Turkish dental schools

This study was conducted to evaluate the predoctoral removable partial denture (RPD) curricula in Turkish dental schools in regards to materials, techniques, and approaches. A questionnaire consisting of eighteen multiple-choice questions was sent by e-mail to the senior members of the prosthodontic departments of seventeen long-established dental schools in Turkey. The response rate was 100 percent. All schools (100 percent) used custom trays for making final impressions of partially dentate arches, taught border molding of the custom tray for the edentulous areas, used modeling plastic impression compound in border molding the final impression trays, and used base metal alloys for RPD frameworks. None of the schools had an in-house laboratory that fabricates RPD frameworks, and none of the students cast the frameworks of their own RPDs. The majority of schools used irreversible hydrocolloid as a final impression (70.6 percent) and dental surveyor (76.5 percent) in the designing of RPDs. The majority of schools did not flask their own RPDs (64.7 percent), did not treat patients using RPDs with attachments (76.5 percent), and did not perform the altered cast technique in bilateral and unilateral distal extension RPD cases (76.5 percent). Six teen schools (94.1 percent) had a minimum number of RPD arches that a student must complete in order to graduate. It was found that predoctoral RPD curricula in Turkish dental schools were both variable and similar.