A group of researchers decry the absence of sleep-disordered breathing education for dental school students and offer an example of a comprehensive curriculum.
By Tariq Kamal
The incidence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and one of its chief risk factors, obesity, are on the rise. Dentists have a unique opportunity to screen patients and recommend treatment. One might guess that dental schools are responding by addressing sleep-disordered breathing in their curricula.
One would be wrong, according to the researchers behind “Obstructive Sleep Apnoea and the Need for Its Introduction Into Dental Curricula,” an article published in the February 2016 issue of European Journal of Dental Education. Following a survey of 49 US dental schools, the authors calculated a mean curriculum time of 2.96 hours dedicated to OSA and other sleep-related disorders for predoctoral students; only a handful of postdoctoral programs were found to include such courses.
The team of researchers, which includes Gary D. Klasser, DMD, Joel B. Epstein, DMD, MSD, and Pelin Güneri, PhD, DDS, tell Dental Sleep Corner via e-mail that the purpose of their paper is twofold: first, to update readers on the pathology and treatment of OSA, and second, to offer a template for a pre- and postdoctoral curriculum that addresses the role of dentists in treating sleep-disordered breathing.
“The addition of another topic to an already crowded curricula is not an easy task,” say Klasser, Epstein, and Güneri. “However, not providing this necessary component to the dental students would be both a disservice to the students as well as the patients they will ultimately serve.”
The team agrees even more could be learned from a survey of every dental school in the United States. They would like to know how many have integrated the topic of sleep-disordered breathing into their curricula and in what academic years, the amount of time prescribed to the topic, how it is being discussed, and the credentials of the faculty members who are addressing it.
Without such a component in their academic career, the researchers explain, dentists must rely on courses offered by manufacturers of oral appliances and information gleaned from medical literature and industry meetings.
“Impacting the dental student with critical thinking skills and knowledge and the importance of various topics while in school is critical,” say Klasser, Epstein, and Güneri in the interview. “If dental education were to entrust this task to outside sources after graduation, then we will have missed a great opportunity to get our students excited by this burgeoning field.”
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