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Analyzing Dental Students' Clinic Production Using Time-Based Relative Value Units: Ten-Year Cross-Cohort Mapping
R Todd Watkins1, Linc J Conn2, Robert G Gellin2
1Dr. Watkins is Assistant Dean for Dental Education and Informatics, East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Conn is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of General Dentistry, East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine; Dr. Gellin is Professor and Chair, Department of Stomatology, Medical University of South Carolina College of Dental Medicine; Dr. Gonzales is Associate Dean for Curriculum and Strategic Communications and Professor, Department of Stomatology, Medical University of South Carolina College of Dental Medicine; Dr. Hamil is Associate Professor, Department of Stomatology, Medical University of South Carolina College of Dental Medicine; Dr. Cayouette is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Oral Rehabilitation, Medical University of South Carolina College of Dental Medicine; and Dr. Schmidt is Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Professor, Department of Stomatology, Medical University of South Carolina College of Dental Medicine. watkinsr@ecu.edu.
Abstract:
The analysis of dental students' clinical production/participation has been used to assess whether a prospective graduate is capable of unsupervised and independent practice (that is, competent to perform that practice). This method and others have inherent biases that may not accurately reflect whether the student has mastered the associated concepts and techniques required for dentistry. The aim of this study was to assess an informatics system that assigned curriculum meta-tags with time-based relative educational value units (ReVUs) to each clinical procedure performed by Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) students. The system has been used since 1998, but for this study the complete data sets for the MUSC graduating classes of 2007 through 2016 were mapped using microcompetency codes for the dental procedures. In total, 421,494 procedures were formatted and analyzed using software developed to aggregate disparate data sets from clinical activities into a common format for evaluation. The results showed that the ten classes (cohorts) were very consistent with cohort high ReVUs averaging 7,317.1 points, cohort mean ReVUs being 5,180.2 points, and cohort low ReVUs averaging 3,381 points. A detailed analysis of student effort by dental subspecialty found that preventive activities represented 13.4%, patient assessment 32.6%, periodontology 2.8%, restorative dentistry 16.3%, prosthodontics 21.9%, endodontics 6.7%, and oral surgery 5.7% of the total points in the clinical part of the curriculum. In this system, point thresholds can be easily generated to monitor students' progress towards competence for each defined competency and thus assess their progress towards acquiring the skills required for unsupervised, independent practice.