YouTube: a new way of supplementing traditional methods in dental education

Higher education in many disciplines has undergone a dramatic change with the incorporation of electronic means to enhance student learning. YouTube is an open-access online website that has gained tremendous popularity in recent years as it allows users to upload videos for social and educational purposes. The aim of this study was to assess whether dentally relevant videos would be utilized as a freely available tool to aid learning. Forty videos, mainly in the area of dental anatomy and local anesthesia, were uploaded and made available for a period of eighteen months from March 2012 to September 2013. The videos were watched a total of nearly 71,000 times, with the anatomy channels accounting for 58,000 views. Most of the viewers were from the United States and Australia, with an ever-increasing number of viewers from developing countries. This study suggests that YouTube can be used as an adjunct tool to supplement dental education due to it being easily accessible online. It provides many sources of information that can be accessed by those working in or preparing for the dental profession, whether students, practitioners, or those in geographically isolated areas.