Teaching History of Dentistry in Dental Curricula A survey of 393 dental schools in 100 countries.

ABSTRACT

Teaching history of dentistry and/or medicine in dental schools is not a priority today. A half a century ago it was part of a significant number of dental school curricula. As advances in science occurred and more demand on the curriculum were made, history of medicine and dentistry (HMD) was largely cast aside. In a recent survey of 393 dental programs in 100 countries on five continents, only 18.8% have a stand-alone course in HMD. Nearly half of the programs though have at least 1-2 hours of curriculum time devoted to HMD. When we consider a subset of the above survey, only 5% of dental schools in the US and Canada have a stand-alone course. The exclusion of HMD from current dental curricula is shortsighted. Teaching only current and state-of-the art aspects of dentistry is like showing a still image from the end of a movie without watching the rest.