Dental News - American dental organizations propose changes for licensure

Dental Tribune International

Wed. 17. October 2018

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CHICAGO, U.S.: At the beginning of the month, the American Dental Association, American Dental Education Association and American Student Dental Association announced the formation of a new coalition to push for licensure changes.

The new set of rules would standardize dental licensure examinations nationwide and thus allow dentists to more easily move across state lines, and would dispense with an ineffective approach to testing students’ competency. Dr. Cecile Feldman, co-chair of the task force that developed the recommendations and whose members were drawn from the three associations, said in an interview with Medscape Medical News that there are “much more reliable ways of showing that a student is ready”.

However, the proposal has met opposition from the American Association of Dental Boards, whose president, Dr. Luis Fujimoto, maintains that a student’s clinical competency should be evaluated by someone other than the student’s professors.

For the change to occur, individual state dental boards would have to agree to the proposal, and in some states, this might require legislation, according to Prof. Phillip Marucha, Dean of the Oregon Health and Science University School of Dentistry, who represented dental school deans on the task force. Either way, dentists would still be required to pass the National Board Dental Examination.

The full document, titled Report of the Task Force on Assessment of Readiness for Practice, can be obtained here.

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ADA American Changes Dental Licensure Organization Proposal Students

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