Dental school continuing education courses: ten-year retrospective study

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Continuing Professional Development

Background:

• Public concern exists regarding mandatory continuing dental education requirements.
• Ensuring the quality and relevance of continuing dental education is crucial for maintaining professional standards.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize continuing dental education (CDE) courses based on available data.
• To analyze key features of CDE offerings, including cost, duration, and subject matter.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of continuing dental education course listings from The Journal.
• Review of annual reports from the American Dental Association (ADA) Council on Dental Education.
• Data extraction on tuition, course length, and content areas.

Main Results:

• Identified trends in tuition fees for various continuing dental education courses.
• Characterized the typical length of continuing dental education programs.
• Categorized the subject areas covered in continuing dental education offerings.

Conclusions:

• Understanding the landscape of continuing dental education is essential for educators and policymakers.
• Data-driven insights can inform the development of more effective and relevant CDE programs.
• The analysis provides a baseline for future research into continuing dental education effectiveness.