Video: DentSim

This is an informational video about DentSim.

Benefits of Virtual Reality Based Simulators in Dental Education

Potential Benefits of the Use of DentSim in Dental Education

When students receive instant feedback on their work, they are able to more rapidly correct their mistakes and make progress in their work. DentSim emulates a virtual reality of sorts where the work they are performing on a fake patient is presented to them on a screen that assesses the quality of their work. The student is then able to bypass waiting in line to be able to check their work with a professor. Instead, they can instantly receive feedback and correct their methods so that they become more efficient in dental techniques when they are tested in a non computer-based situation.

A study that compared virtual reality based training with traditional training found that the students using DentSim benefitted in the following ways:

• Completed assigned teeth preparations in less time than those using traditional methods, except when it came to full gold crowns, where those using traditional methods spent 11 minutes less than their DentSim counterparts. 
• Students using DentSim also spent less time talking to faculty members than their traditional counterparts when they asked for help. 
• The number of times the DentSim students asked for help was also less than the number of times the traditional students asked for help. The students using traditional methods spent five times longer with an instructor asking for feedback. In many dental schools, the student-to-faculty ratio is anywhere between 10:1 and 20:1. It would be impossible for an instructor to aid each one of those students in the amount of time the students using traditional methods spent asking the instructor for help in the aforementioned case study. 
• For this reason, in another study, students who used the virtual reality program prepared more teeth than their traditional counterparts. The students were able to prepare more teeth due to spending less time interacting with faculty – instead they received their feedback from the computer (Jasinevicius, Landers, Nelson, & Urbankova, 2004).

References

1. Jasinevicius, T. R., Landers, M., Nelson, S., & Urbankova, A. (2004). An evaluation of two dental simulation systems: virtual reality versus contemporary non-computer-assisted. Journal of Dental Education, 68(11), 1151-1162. Retrieved February 11, 2011, from  http://www.jdentaled.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/11/1151