Teaching Vital Pulp Treatment for Permanent Teeth to Undergraduate/Pre-Doctoral Students: A Multinational Survey

To investigate the current status of education in vital pulp treatment (VPT) for the management of permanent teeth in relation to undergraduate/pre-doctoral students at a range of dental schools worldwide.

The web-based survey consisted of 28 questions that had been validated and piloted by a range of experienced endodontists. Faculty members who taught endodontics at one dental school in each selected country participated in the survey, which was completed in March 2025. Simple descriptive statistics were used to present the data.

Forty faculty members from various countries completed the survey; the majority of which (82.5%) worked at public universities. All participating dental schools included VPT teaching in their undergraduate/predoctoral curricula. The primary method of teaching VPT in the majority of dental schools was didactic lectures. VPT preclinical exercises were included in only 32.5% of the schools. The vast majority of dental schools did not require students to pass a preclinical or clinical competency examination in relation to VPT prior to graduation. Hydraulic calcium silicate materials were the most commonly used for exposed pulps but not for pulps that were not exposed.

VPT has been integrated into the undergraduate/pre-doctoral curriculum of all dental schools that participated in this survey. However, the majority of dental schools that were surveyed lacked preclinical teaching and competency assessments for VPT in both preclinical and clinical scenarios.