Читать книгу The Veterinary Dental Patient: A Multidisciplinary Approach - Группа авторов - Страница 51

Since oral health must be incorporated into primary care, dentistry should be an obligatory subject (as opposed to an elective) for all small‐animal‐oriented students. However, there seems to be a disconnection between the required classes in the standard veterinary curriculum and the skills required in everyday practice.

Regardless of the OIE recommendations concerning the competencies needed for graduating veterinarians – in addition to publications from the scientific community – veterinary dentistry is still severely undertaught in veterinary school. The situation regarding the teaching of veterinary dentistry was the subject of a survey among students of veterinary faculties at 28 universities across 24 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine) in 2010 (Gawor 2011). The first question was, “Is veterinary dentistry taught in your school?” Replies showed that small‐animal and equine dentistry were taught at 68% of schools, just small‐animal at 18%, and no dentistry at 14%. Meanwhile, 63% of faculties that provided veterinary dentistry had it as compulsory and 33% as optional, with 4% indicating it was both. The majority of schools offered dentistry at the fourth and fifth year of education, with 70% providing a combination of theoretical and practical classes compared with 26% providing only theory. In 59% of establishments, dentistry was a part of the surgical department, in 23% it was provided independently, and in the rest it was a part of small‐animal clinics. In 24% of surveyed schools, the dental program was provided by the diplomate of the veterinary dental college, in 38% by a veterinarian practicing only or mostly dentistry, in 10% by a human dentist, and in the remaining 28% by random veterinarians.

There are few veterinary faculties worldwide that include dentistry in the regular curriculum. Only a few locations in Europe provide a veterinary dental program, in terms of number of hours and lecturer competence: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Veterinarmedizinische, Fakultet der Universitat Leipzig, Univerza v Ljubljani Veterinarska fakulteta, the Faculty of Life Science at the University of Copenhagen, and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Helsinki. A handful more offer veterinary dentistry as an elective/optional course, usually with limited enrolment (Perry 2014). The situation of veterinary dentistry in North america is very similar to that in Europe. Currency, only about 20% of Veterinary Universities have a Board Certified veterinary dentist on staff. Some have “Board Qualified” or “enthusiast” level faculty, however for the most part dentistry is taught (to the extent that it is) by general practitioners in the community practice section. A few have veterinary dentists who are associated with the University, but this is becoming more rare. Finally, there are still some that have human dentists teach veterinary dentistry. Didactic learning is often part of the internal medicine or surgery department offerings in most schools. Therefore, like Europe, unless the student is in one of the few universities with a dentist on staff the education is poor. Even those universities who have a dentist on staff, dentistry continues to be an elective. Luckily, this is about to change. As of November 2020, instruction in veterinary dentistry is REQUIRED by the AVMA. We look forward to improved dental care as a result of this excellent (but overdue) directive (AVMA Council on Education 2020).