What will the future of dental education look like?

In a first step towards reinventing paediatric dental training, educators at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Dentistry have found that dental students’ skills in handling children’s behaviour can be accurately assessed using only text transcripts.

The study published in JMIR Medical Education showed that transcript-based evaluations produced results comparable to those obtained from full video-recorded clinical session assessments.

With this approach, educators can deliver meaningful and personalised feedback that helps students develop the skills and confidence to manage paediatric patients—from routine checks to sessions with fearful and uncooperative patients—all without sifting through hours of video footage.

This could significantly reduce the time and manpower required for clinical teaching, especially in settings where faculty resources are stretched.

“These findings allow us to enhance training for our dental students by providing more personalised and insightful feedback on their interactions with young patients,” Associate Professor Hu Shijia said, elaborating on the study conducted by his team. “With a better understanding of each student’s needs, we can better tailor our training to help them grow into more confident and effective dentists, ultimately providing better care for young patients.”

"With a better understanding of each student’s needs, we can better tailor our training to help them grow into more confident and effective dentists"

Assoc Prof Hu Shijia

And because transcript-based evaluations can be processed digitally, the approach also opens the door for leveraging AI-powered large language models (LLMs) to assist in analysing student interactions and generating feedback in dental education.

With the support of the Ministry of Education Tertiary Education Research Fund grant, the team plans to conduct a follow-up study to assess AI’s effectiveness in providing feedback to dental students on their behaviour management skills during actual clinical sessions. 

This could pave the way for the development of a “virtual mentor” system with potential applications far beyond dental training in fields like nursing and medicine. Such a system could transform clinical training by helping students build confidence and communication skills in paediatric care while enabling faculty to focus on higher-level mentorship and more personalised guidance at the same time.

Adapted for MEDICUS by Chua Li Min from an original story published by NUS News: Reinventing paediatric dental training at NUS