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UCSF School of Dentistry
Curriculum Planning Update - Summer 1999
Dear UCSF School of Dentistry Faculty,
This page is intended as an introduction to the curriculum planning process in the school of Dentistry at UCSF and to provide faculty and students with some detail about the curriculum planning process and about the proposed new curriculum. This material has been disseminated at meetings held during the 1998-99 academic year of the Educational Policy Committee (EPC, 6 meetings) and its subcommittees, the Basic Sciences Coordinating Committee (BSCC, 2 meetings) and the Clinical Sciences Coordinating Committee (CSCC, one meeting). This material was also distributed to the Faculty Council at their meeting of July 1, 1999. At this meeting the departmental representatives on Faculty Council were encouraged to photocopy and disseminate it to their departmental colleagues for review and discussion.
The purpose of disseminating this information is to give faculty an opportunity to review the proposed changes in the curriculum and to inform themselves about the details of the plan before they indicate their level of enthusiasm for the plan. Faculty are also encouraged to provide feedback to the Curriculum Planning Committee, either directly or via their Faculty Council representative. The members of the Curriculum Planning Committee are listed at the bottom of this page, along with their e-mail addresses. The Faculty Council is planning to review the curriculum plan at its meeting of August 19, 1999. The entire faculty is scheduled to consider the plan at its October retreat, to be held on October 16, 1999, at the Laurel Heights Conference Center.
For those of you interested in reviewing the School of Medicine's similar plans for revising their curriculum, it can be accessed on the web at the following address:
http://www.som.ucsf.edu/education/oca/newcurric/.
Below you will find a set of links to documents that discuss the curriculum review process and the proposed changes to the curriculum.
The Curriculum Planning Committee
The Curriculum Planning Process
UCSF School of Dentistry - 1996-99
Biomedical Sciences Stream
(subcommittee chaired by Peter B. Sargent)
The principal challenge in planning for Biomedical Sciences Stream was to generate an Organ Systems and Human Pathophysiology course. This was done by taking elements from many existing courses, especially Physiology, Pharmacology, General Pathology, and Oral Pathology. As currently envisaged, this course would be taught over three quarters: the Spring quarter of year I and the Fall and Winter quarters of year II. It would be taken by both Dental and Dental Hygiene students. See the links below to learn more about this proposed new course as well as about other, less radical proposals for changes in the Biomedical Sciences curriculum.
- Table of Existing and Proposed Courses
- Fate of Existing Courses
- Description of New Courses
- Example of a block of material in the Human Pathophysiology course
Dental Sciences Stream
(subcommittee chaired by Mark I. Ryder)
Patient-Centered Care Stream
(planning subcommittee chaired by Bill Bird)
The curriculum planning within the Patient-Centered Care Stream has been closely tied to the Accreditation process, which has resulted in increased attention on competencies and their assessment. As a result of this focus, the subcommittee has taken a broad view of the entire four year curriculum and has organized 42 defined competencies we expect of our dental graduates into six domains, which are
- Professionalism
- Patient Assessment
- Behavioral Science
- Disease Prevention & Management
- Restoration of Form & Function
- Comprehensive Dental Care.
For each competency the planning committee has considered when the material should be introduced and when competency should be measured. A table with all 42 competencies, and the "introduced" and "measured" times indicated, can be accessed by clicking on the link below.
Note that this link has four tables in series: one for each year of the dental curriculum.
Detailed planning for some of the domains is now complete. Below are the detailed lay-outs for the Professionalism domain (#1) and the Patient Assessment Domain (#2).
Professionalism Competencies
Patient Assessment Competencies
You will see that these tables have much more information in them than the first table, Domains and Competencies. These tables indicate not only the time when material is introduced into the curriculum relevant to a competency and when that competency is assessed, but also criteria for assessment of competency and how competency is measured. Tables such as these will be used to follow progress of each class of students and of each individual student.
As an example of how these tables can be used to follow student progress, see the link below, which is to a competency #9 (Diagnosis & management of space management problems) within Domain #4 (Disease Prevention & Management).
Domain #4, Disease Prevention & Management, Competency 4.9, Diagnosis & management of space management problems
Foundations of Restorative Science & Technology Stream
(planning subcommittee chaired by Gordon Douglass)
Scientific Method & Clinical Dentistry Stream
(planning subcommittee chaired by Hilary Pritchard)
Vertical Integration
One of the challenges faced by the Curriculum Planning Committee is to integrate the curriculum vertically. There should be a congruity in what the students are exposed to each week. In some instances we have attempted to "line up" material in different courses that is thematically integrated (e.g., having the students learn about the histology and the gross anatomy of organ systems in parallel in two separate courses. But the vertical integration effort involves detailed planning, and we have left much of this for a time when all the individuals who play a role in this process are in place (see memo about Resources). The final version of the curriculum should have a balanced slate of courses each quarter (no more than 4-6, according to the original goal) and should have, at least in the first two years, no more than 30-32 hours of formal instruction per week. Here (below) is a table of where we are for year 1. You can see that the number of hours fluctuates a bit and is as high as 39 per week for a while. This will need to be corrected in subsequent stages of the planning process.
What happens now?
Look this material over. You will see that it is a "work in progress." The curriculum planning committee has worked for nearly three years to bring the planning process to the point where it is now, in the Summer of 1999. To complete this process, we need additional resources, as outlined above. But to obtain these resources, we need the enthusiastic participation of the School's administration, and in order for them to acquire these resources, they need to know the level of enthusiasm that we, the faculty, have for this framework. Now is the time to discuss these plans among yourselves and give feedback to your Faculty Council representatives and to the Curriculum Planning Committee (see below). Together we can make a significant difference in the quality of the educational experience at the School, in the quality of our students' experience while they are here at UCSF (and, by extension, their attitude about UCSF after they leave) and in the quality of the dental professionals we graduate.
The Curriculum Planning Committee
- Peter B. Sargent, sargent@itsa.ucsf.edu, Box 0512, 476-6156
- Mark I. Ryder, mirper@itsa.ucsf.edu, Box 0650, 476-1699
- Hilary Pritchard, hkp@itsa.ucsf.edu, Box 0430, 476-5756
- Gordon Douglass, gordond@itsa.ucsf.edu, Box 0758, 476-9118
- Bill Bird, birdb@itsa.ucsf.edu, Box 0758, 476-4038
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