Improved dental student clinical skills performance through an integrated dental and medical student curriculum

Purpose/objectives In light of a movement to eliminate the historical separation of dentistry and medicine to produce more collaborative and knowledgeable clinicians and to improve care, integrated education models are vital. This study aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of an integrated medical and dental student curriculum at the University of Connecticut. It was hypothesized that a medical and dental student doctoring course within an already combined biomedical curriculum would result in statistically significantly increases in dental student clinical skills performance. Methods Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized for an overall test of scores from 2016 to 2019. When ANOVA indicated significant differences, post hoc pairwise comparisons using Tukey's adjustment classified pairs that differed significantly. Lastly, a contrast was constructed to test the difference before and after the course's introduction. A two‐sided α of 0.05 was used. Results Dental students were assessed on three cases for history taking and master interview rating scale (MIRS) criteria. The mean averages in history taking and MIRS criteria after the implementation of this course increased by 7.81 (SE = 1.83, p