Biodontics: Dental students as change agents for dental school curricula.
نویسنده
چکیده
Change is a complex process both for species and for institutions. Species change by mutation. If the mutations have survival value, the new mutated species survives; if not, the mutant becomes extinct. Institutions often change by adaptation; the mechanisms for adaptation are individualized and depend on the institution. For example, corporations use board meetings, governments use elections or palace coups, and religions use divine intervention. Dental school faculties, in making change to their curricula, use a combination of all 3 adaptation mechanisms. However, dental schools probably rank second only to governmental institutions in their resistance to change. In my 30 years as a faculty member, I have seen all 3 mechanisms at work. I have attended numerous dental faculty committee meetings convened to either update or revise a dental schools curriculum. These meetings remind me of the game “3-Card Monty,” in which an ace and 2 other playing cards are placed face down and moved rapidly from one position to another. The object of the game is to find the ace, but only rarely is it correctly located. Similarly, at faculty meetings convened to consider the introduction of a new course, the existing courses are moved from one time slot to another so rapidly that tracking the changes is difficult and locating the “ace” is almost impossible. It is only later, when the syllabus for the new curriculum is completed, that the new course is found buried to the point of obscurity among the curriculum’s previous offerings. In this way, curriculum revision meetings become more of a 3-Card Monty curriculum shuffle than an actual revision.
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Compendium of continuing education in dentistry
دوره 26 8 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2005