Dental education

The demand for dental care is unceasing. Within an ageing population, people are retaining their teeth to an older age and requiring more complex dental treatment and maintenance at their dental practices. Dental teams need to cope with a diverse population with ever-changing disease patterns.

Our research focuses on the development and evaluation of innovative education for the dental team. We develop new operative and learning tools for dentistry – such as the use of Virtual Reality (VR) in dental training – and collaborate with industrial partners, such as Kerr Dental, to test different dental materials and techniques.

We aim to develop health care professionals who can meet the changing demands of the population, and the outcomes of our research could improve the training of the dental care workforce pre and post-qualification. Our work researching interprofessional and outreach activities have also led to improved knowledge, practices and access to dental care for hard-to-reach communities, such as the homeless.

Methods

We use interviews, surveys and focus groups in our research and conduct experimental design where new training approaches are trialled – including simulation and interprofessional training with other health care professionals, such as Pharmacy workers.

Our research is conducted using electronic systems of monitoring student performance, phantom head facilities, simulation technology for training, and outreach training experiences in the local community.

Discover our areas of expertise

Dental education is one of our areas of research expertise in Dental and Oral Health – explore the others below.

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Interested in a PhD in Dental & Oral Health?

Browse our postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils – at our Dental & Oral Health postgraduate research degrees page.