To: Jennifer Perkins, DDS, MD, Assistant Dean, Curriculum, School of Dentistry (SOD)

From:
   Cristin Kearns, DDS, MBA, Chair, SOD Faculty Council
   Rishi Jay Gupta, DDS, MD, Vice Chair, SOD Faculty Council
   Grant Tsuji, DDS, Vice Chair, SOD Faculty Council
   Christine Hong, DMD, MS, Faculty Council Member
   Matthew Kutys, PhD, Faculty Council Member
   Guo-Hao Lin, MS, DDS, Faculty Council Member
   Ricardo Lugo, DDS, MD, Faculty Council Member
   Snehlata Oberoi, BDS, DDS, MDS, Faculty Council Member
   Mark Roper, DDS, MS, Faculty Council Member

Re: Curriculum Blueprint Feedback

Date: March 1st, 2024

The 2023-2024 School of Dentistry (SOD) Faculty Council (FC) appreciates and thanks Assistant Dean Perkins and Diana Nguyen and Elizabeth Joyce, members of the Core Curriculum Design Workgroup, for their presentation of the Curriculum Design Blueprint at our December meeting.

We continue to commend the enthusiasm and diligence that all 50+ members of both the various committees and the Core Project Leadership Group have put to date towards the project. It is important to state that SOD FC leadership understands the critical importance of improving the SOD curriculum. The Council remains in strong, enthusiastic support of the curriculum redesign efforts.

To prepare our feedback to the 2023 Blueprint, members of faculty council have attended Blueprint presentations at faculty council, in their own departments or divisions, and at the Town Halls. The Blueprint has been discussed by the entire faculty council at the December and February Faculty Meetings, including additional follow-up meetings to reach faculty council members who were unable to attend. Faculty council leadership has met multiple times with the co-chairs of the FC Educational Policy Committee and have met with some of the CWG subgroup leads. The Faculty Council Chair has met informally with Dr. Perkins on two occasions. Faculty council leadership has also thoroughly reviewed the faculty council meeting minutes between 2013 and 2019 to understand the past curriculum revision attempt that was launched in 2013, and the product of that previous curriculum revision attempt, the December 2016 document, Shaping Our Future: Proposed Framework for New SOD Curriculum. Faculty council members have also participated in curriculum workgroups. Based on our review, we put forth the following recommendations for revisions to the 2023 Draft Blueprint.

Recommendation #1: The 2023 Blueprint would be strengthened by directly referencing the 2016 Shaping Our Future report. Shaping Our Future is the work product of a group of dedicated faculty/faculty council members who spent multiple years on an earlier curriculum revision process that was initiated by faculty council in 2013. Their work should be acknowledged, and the ways in which the 2023 Blueprint has incorporated this earlier work should be clearly stated. Example questions to be answered in the 2023 Blueprint include:

  • What from Shaping Our Future has already been implemented? 
    • Example: Group Practice Model
  • What from Shaping Our Future has been discarded, and why? 
    • Example: Shaping Our Future incorporates modified elements of the Bridges Curriculum, such as the Representative Disease Processes “UCSF SOD 35”, however no mention is made of this in the 2023 Blueprint. It is not clear if this strategy has been abandoned, and if so, why.
  • What from Shaping Our Future has been revised, and why? 
    • Example: Duration of Externship experiences. Shaping Our Future recommended extending externship experiences from 3 rotations of 3 weeks to 10-12 consecutive weeks. The 2023 Blueprint has increased this to 18 weeks.
  • What from Shaping Our Future has been incorporated as is, and why?
    • Example: Educational theory

Recommendation #2: The 2023 Blueprint would be strengthened by describing how the environment has changed since Shaping Our Future and indicate how the 2023 Blueprint addresses/connects to these changes. Examples of environmental changes may include (but are not limited by):

  • COVID
  • Social justice, anti-oppression movements
  • Dental Workforce Issues
  • Trends in dental technology
  • Trends in dental research and education
  • Evaluations of Bridges curriculum was new in 2016 – what has been learned from its implementation, what has changed?
  • EPIC Implementation
  • Dental Center / Joining UC Health
  • Budgetary constraints at both the state and campus level
  • Changes to licensure exams

Recommendation #3: The 2023 Blueprint would be strengthened by directly referencing the SOD’s commitment to serving the public of California and beyond. Examples include:

  • Acknowledging oral health disparities in California
  • Highlighting how our curriculum will serve the public
  • Highlighting how the curriculum at a public institution differs from a private institution

Recommendation #4: The 2023 Blueprint would be strengthened by expanding the vision of the dental graduate. The current vision of the dental graduate appears to be focused mainly on clinical dentistry. There seems to be a missed opportunity to define how dental graduates from a public institution differ from those graduating from a private institution. Examples include:

  • How will our dental graduates change dentistry and dental care?
  • How will our dental graduates work toward reducing oral health disparities?
  • How will we prepare our dental graduates to engage in social justice /anti-oppression work?

Recommendation #5: The 2023 Blueprint would be strengthened by mapping the curricular domains to the SOD competencies to validate the domains, identify overlaps, and spark innovation and creative thinking.

  • A strength of the 2016 Shaping Our Future Report is the mapping of the curricular domains to SOD competency statements, which aligned with the ADEA Competencies for the New General Dentist, the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), the Accreditation Council For Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), The UCSF School of Medicine’s new Bridges Curriculum, and the UCSF Interprofessional Education (IPE) competency.
  • While we understand that competency mapping is planned to take place in a subsequent phase, we are concerned that the curricular domains have not been thoroughly vetted for alignment with the competencies. We believe that undertaking the work to map the competencies to the curricular domains at a high level, during the Blueprint phase is necessary.
  • Faculty council proposes to partner with the CWG to plan for how best to conduct competency mapping to ensure a successful outcome within the timeliest manner, such that the revision process continues on pace.

Minority Report: Of note, not all SOD Faculty Council members supported Recommendation #5. Members who did not vote to approve requested a minority report statement be included in the Council’s response to state this on the record. Pursuant to Sturgis Code of Parliamentary Procedure, while more than eighty percent of Council members approved this Recommendation, we include this statement to recognize the members who did not.

Recommendation #6: The 2023 Blueprint should clearly state what is innovative about the proposed new curriculum. For example:

  • Implementation of entrustable professional activities as a foundational framework
  • Future integration with artificial intelligence tools for enhanced cavity detection and periodontal disease diagnosis

Recommendation #7: The 2023 Blueprint should provide more detail about the planned expansion of the Community Based Clinical Education to 18 weeks of externships, including the rationale for the expansion, and how obstacles related to expansion will be addressed during the curriculum revision process, For example:
Faculty council members are concerned about:

  • Maintaining continuity of care within group practices
  • Maintaining standards at these outside sites so they align with the curriculum, and
  • Calibration of externship sites if students are spending extended time there.
  • Connection to CODA – how will increased externship time adhere with CODA requirements

Recommendation #8: Increased participation by faculty council in the next phases of the curriculum revision work.

  • We are encouraged by the information received from Dr. Perkins about the opportunity to create a new project charter for the next phase of the Curriculum Redesign Project.
  • We agree that this would be an excellent opportunity for increased communication and collaboration between existing project leadership and FC.
  • We look forward to a collaborative and constructive working relationship with the various constituents on all future efforts. The Faculty Council functions as part of the Academic Senate, the systemwide body within the University of California which facilitates shared governance and faculty input in the activities within the campus and the schools. Its independent and neutral position encourages open dialogue, aiming always for clarity and collaboration. We, Faculty Council leadership, are committed to working constructively and in partnership to ensure the best future for the School of Dentistry.