Guest Editorial: Bioclinical Seminars for Undergraduate Dental Education and For Continuing Dental Education

Editorial:

Medical resident education is based largely on case presentations generally in a Grand Rounds format. The advantages of this format include the opportunity to correlate basic science information with clinical practice, and the opportunity for group discussion of the case instead of a monolog lecture presentation. We adopted a similar approach by devoting one day to the Grand Rounds format in our four-day continuing education course on “Clinical Anatomy of the Head and Neck” at the Medical College of Georgia. The participating dentists are assigned specific cases to research and present to their colleagues. The dentists’ consult textbooks, medline searchs, articles, etc. to prepare, present, and then, discuss the case with peers and the course instructors. 
The dentists are encouraged to use the same format in their study clubs and similar peer groups. This approach has proved to be an invaluable teaching method since it brings issues and questions of significant clinical importance forward for open discussion with the opportunity to hear different opinions related to the various aspects of diagnosis, treatments, etc. of a particular case.
At the Medical College of Georgia School of Dentistry, we decided to incorporate bioclinical seminars in the dental curriculum in order to benefit from the Grand Rounds format. The course description is as follows, “Clinical case reports pertinent to the basic science courses currently or presently taught will be presented to the class during the first 30 minutes of the seminars. The remaining one and 1/2 hours of each seminar will be spent by a small group of students in the presence of a faculty moderator in discussing the learning issues pertinent to the case that was given to the
students ten days prior to the seminar.” The major course goals or objectives are to create an environment in which the student becomes a self-learner and problem solver, and allows him/her to apply basic science concepts to the diagnosis and treatment of oral and perioral diseases.  Evidence-based dentistry is emphasized.
If the same approach is adopted by practicing dentists in their study clubs, it will refresh their ability to think critically and teach them how to gather information from sources of knowledge, and then apply it to clinical practice for the benefit of their patients. One of the areas that we emphasize in the bioclinical seminars is TMD and craniofacial pain. We present the students with TMD cases and ask them to search the literature on the pathophysiology of TMD, tooth position vs. condylar position, pain vs. nociception, conservative splint therapy vs. surgical approach, neurophysiology of pain and neurotransmitters, imaging of the TMJ, etc. Students meet in small discussion groups to discuss the case.  These discussion groups are monitored by faculty to assess the sources consulted by the students and the process used by the students to arrive at diagnostic and treatment conclusions for the case. I am writing this editorial to encourage the readers to create bioclinical seminars for their study clubs and perhaps to invite an expert in a particular field related to the case being studied to participate in the seminars without lecturing.