Impact of COVID-19 on Dental Education

Abstract

With the closure of educational institutions across the world, didactic education has come to a stop from the level of primary education up to the level of professional training. Due to the discovery of a high viral load in saliva, dental schools have been considered as a hub of potential disease transmission. Students have reported anxiety over their safety, availability of learning resources, and retaining their efficiency of patient care after dental schools open. Administrators and educators are scrambling to ensure an effective learning experience while retaining the flexibility to adapt to new challenges. Ensuring a uniform grading system for year-end examinations, exit, and entrance examinations will help young professionals retain their career momentum. Problem-based learning, case-based and team-based learning, objective structured clinical examinations, and flipped classrooms are some of the methods that can be used to continue e-learning among dental students while we learn to live in this “new normal” situation.