Domains of Students’ Concerns in Oral Diagnosis and Surgery Clinic

BACKGROUND: Oral diagnosis and surgery education is the main educational subject in dental schools. Due to its importance and the demand to achieve a proper level of training, dental students might have some concerns related to this subject. The study aims to investigate domains related to students’ concerns in oral surgery clinics. MATERIALS AND METHOD: An online questionnaire of five domains was circulated to 211 fourth, and fifth-year students. The domains include; the benefit of oral surgery lectures in oral surgery clinic; the importance of oral surgery clinic, what they fear the most during their oral surgery training; difficulty domain, and importance domain. It was distributed to a sample of 211 fourth-, and fifth-year students at the Ibn Sina College of Dentistry, Baghdad, Iraq in January, and February 2022. RESULTS: In the domain of “benefit of oral surgery lectures in the oral surgery clinic” Half of the respondents think theory lectures are useful. About one-third of the students believe it is essential. The most important item in the domain of “most factors students’ fear” was the item of nerve injury (42.1%). Incomplete tooth removal was reported in (32.7%), whereas post-extraction bleeding was reported by (19.2%). In the domain “the most difficult” 71% of students stated that it is dealing with uncooperative patients was the most important item. Similarly, in the domain “the most important” the majority of students reported that correct surgical diagnosis (70.1%) is the most important item, followed by master extraction technique (26.2%), and master anesthesia technique (3.7%). CONCLUSION: This study evaluated the “fear”, “difficulty”, and “importance” domains of students’ concerns during oral surgery training. There is a noticeable shift in students’ attention toward clinical reasoning compared to the technical aspects of surgical training. This positive shift reflects the perceived importance of diagnosis for proper clinical practice. This needs to be encouraged by the teaching staff.