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An Investigation into the Caries Removal Performance of Year 1 Dental Undergraduate Students’ Clinical Skills
Using a Haptic Virtual Dental Simulator.
Materials and Techniques
Acknowledgements
Our thanks are due to:
King’s College London
Dental Institute for
supporting this research;
and the UK Economic and
Social Research Council
(ESRC) and the
Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC) for
funding the original
hapTEL project.
The aim of this research was to determine the performance progression
of 101 Year-1 novice dental students’ cavity preparation skills using a
haptic dental simulator.
Margaret Josephine Cox; Barry Quinn; Sama Ria; Arash Shahriari-Rad; Jonathan P. San Diego; Mark Woolford; Ali Bakir
Dental Institute, King’s College London, London, UK.
Award Number: RES-139-25-0387
Email haptel@kcl.ac.uk
Web Address
http://www.haptel.kcl.ac.uk
Tel. No. +44(0)20 7188 1307
Fax No. +44(0)20 7188 6444
Conclusions
The hapTEL virtual dental work-stations shown in Figure 1, were used
to teach 101 BDS-Year-1 dental students (January and February 2015).
All students, working in pairs, were taught during two 1-hour sessions
to remove caries from simulated virtual teeth shown in Figure 2.
Task 2 removing caries from a ‘floating tooth’
Task 3-5 involved working on a carious tooth in a lower jaw
All student performances of the percentage of caries removed, healthy
tissue remaining, whether or not the pulp had been exposed and the
time taken were anonymously recorded by the systems for both
sessions creating log files.
Some students also photographed their log-file results and emailed
them to the tutor-researcher.
The results show that a haptic system simulating simple dental procedures can enhance novice dental-
undergraduate students’ cavity preparation skills with only two hours practice.
Based on the previous hapTEL results involving 6 years of student evaluations with 600+ students, these
latest results also support the earlier results that this hapTEL system improves hand-eye coordination, fine
and gross motor skills and through formative assessment provided by the dynamic feedback students’
performance of cavity preparation.
Aim
The results showed that the percentage of: carious tissue removed,
healthy tissue remaining and pulp exposure improved for over 90% of
the students from Session 1 to Session 2.
In Session 1 most students exposed the pulp working on a simple
caries lesion compared with the second session in which the pulp was
minimally exposed by a minority of students when working on the
more complex simulated cavities (tasks 3 – 5).
Results
AERA Annual Meeting 2016 - Poster Session 9 – Division I – Education and Assessment in the Professions
Abstract
The haptic system recorded every student’s actions during two
sessions: including the total time taken on the procedure, on removing
tissue, the % of caries tissue removed, of healthy tissue remaining, and
whether or not the pulp had been exposed.
Statistical correlations of the results showed the following:
(i) students achieve better results if they spend more time on the task;
(ii) they improved their performance from the first to the second
session, confirming that a haptic system simulating simple dental
procedures can enhance novice dental-undergraduate students’ cavity
preparation skills with only two hours’ practice.
3D#Display#
Monitor#
Hap0c#
handpiece#
Foot#Controls#
Hap0c#Device#
Shu:er#glasses#
Audio#speakers#
Camera#
Pod#
(a) (b)