Obstacles In The Global Citizenship In Dentistry: Students’ Perspective.

Abstract

Objectives: Globalisation exerts a significant impact on dental education and professional training. We developed the ‘Global Citizenship in Dentistry’ (GCD) based on an undergraduate course of direct restoration to address the demands of globalisation for dental students. The objectives of this study were to explore the obstacles in the GCD programme from the students’ perspective and their suggestions to enhance the programme. Methods: Year-2 dental students from different universities were allocated to study groups. They participated a 3-week online activities, prepared their portfolios and shared their knowledge and experience on restorative dentistry. After completion of the GCD programme in 2018-2019, selected students from The University of Hong Kong were invited to participate a focus group discussion. Their responses were collated for reporting. Results: Nine students joined the focus group discussion. They indicated the obstacles could be the limited period of the time for the GCD programme, unenthusiastic response from some groupmates, delays of the replies from peer students, and no access to visit works from other study groups. Suggestions to remove these obstacles included extending of the programme span, providing pre-course motivation of the participated students, enhancing the website, developing a user-friendly platform and extending the programme to other dental courses. Conclusion: Students are facing challenges and changes in the learning process. They indicated that motiving the students, extending the period of knowledge exchange, enhancing communication between students and minimizing the technical barriers of the website platform are essential to foster learning experiences and learning outcomes of the GCD programme.