As a periodontist who is full time in academics, we together have been trying to develop an entirely new dental curriculum for U.G. and P.G. students of our country. If we examine dental curricula of several universities world wide with particular attention to recent ones; it is evident that there is integration of basic and clinical sciences, leading to a patient centered dental education but rather not a procedure based one. More emphasis should be on evidence based clinical decision-making strategies aimed at moulding prospective students into life long learners. Periodontics has been one of the leading specialities in planning, integrating and developing contemporary dental curriculum in recent times with advancements in immunohistochemically based etiopathogenesis pathways for evidence based clinical diagnosis and intelligent genetic decoding techniques leading to improved host modulation based treatment strategies. For years, periodontal education at all levels has been based on the intimate connection between microbiology, immunology and various clinical periodontal conditions. We are happy to name these conditions as periodontal diseases, but when our students diagnose a patient as suffering from gingivitis or periodontitis, they are identifying a disease rather than formulating an effective treatment procedure. In recent years, periodontal research has shown association between periodontal inflammation and a number of systemic diseases. The relationship between periodontitis, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular conditions, and pre-term low birth weight babies has been established. This research has enormous public health implications. The evidence based clinical practice implies that our diagnostic decisions should be supported by sound and logical Meta research data. We are fortunate to have high quality research data since 1960 in our specialty. We have long term data supporting the effectiveness of all forms of non-surgical and surgical periodontal treatments including Dental implants.
Life-long learning is an obligation of any health care provider and a well designed evidence based dental curriculum can guide students by including direction to keep pace with the concept of ever evolving scientific research. We, the fulltime academic members of Indian Society of Periodontology have made efforts in the past to renew curriculum and submit our recommendations to Dental council of India; but it has not been materialized. The need of the hour is to form a new evidence based curriculum for under graduate students with 4 years degree course and one year compulsory rotatory internship.
