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| EDITORIAL |
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| Year : 2015 | Volume
: 5
| Issue : 1 | Page : 1 |
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Interdisciplinary dental curriculum: To meet practice needs of the 21 st century
Ashita Uppoor
Editor in Chief: Journal of Interdisciplinary Dentistry, Department of Periodontology, Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal University, Mangalore, Karnataka, India
| Date of Web Publication | 12-Aug-2015 |
Correspondence Address:
Ashita Uppoor
Editor in Chief: Journal of Interdisciplinary Dentistry, Department of Periodontology, Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Manipal University, Mangalore, Karnataka
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/2229-5194.162734
How to cite this article:
Uppoor A. Interdisciplinary dental curriculum: To meet practice needs of the 21 st century. J Interdiscip Dentistry 2015;5:1 |
 Knowledge is growing in exponential proportions in all specialties of dentistry. The Government of India has embarked on the exercise of framing a New Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the needs and requirements of the ever demanding populace with the purpose of providing for quality education, innovation, and research in the field of higher education. These policy ratifications have creeped into the medical and dental professional scheme of things as well. The American Dental Education Association's Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education, have initiated advocating major curriculum reforms in order to in still within students a higher order of thinking skills required for contemporary practice of modern dentistry. Traditional curriculum replicates the fable of the blind men attempting to identify the various parts of the elephant. Dentistry in this century has far exceeded the proportions of the fabled elephant. Probably an interdisciplinary curriculum may be the need of the hour. In contrast to a specific discipline based view of knowledge, an interdisciplinary approach does not stress delineations but linkages. Interdisciplinary curricula must be organized around specific themes. A harmonious combination of basic and clinical sciences will make a head way for assessing competency based skills. Our international collaborations with other health professional's schools will then set the footing for achieving global standards. Thus, the interdisciplinary curriculum provides an opportunity for a more relevant less fragmented and stimulating experience for students hence, ejecting them out of the penumbra associated with the otherwise constricted system of individualistic specialty based approaches.
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