Oral health care education related to disasters in undergraduate curriculum

Objectives: In catastrophic disasters, like Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake (M7.3) in 1995, Sumatra Tsunami disaster in 2004, medical support is an essential service for injured persons and evacuees, and forensic identification is also important. Though the role of dental professionals is reported to be important in past cases, it is still unclear who should take a part as dental professionals and how to provide oral health care service in disaster areas. In this report, we investigated current situation of undergraduate dental education related to disasters to propose an educational strategy. Methods: We sent a questionnaire on dental education about oral health care related to disasters to 29 Japanese dental schools (Classes, Contents, Ideal educational methods etc.). Results: 21 out of 29 dental schools (72.4%) responded. 19 out of 21 schools (90.5%) didn't have classes of this topic in their curriculum and 2 schools (9.5%) had classes for 1.5 hours and 3 hours, respectively. In 19 schools that didn't have classes, 2 schools (10.5%) answered “Yes”, 6 schools (31.6%) answered “No” and 11 schools (57.9%) answered ”Unknown” about their future plan to prepare classes. 18 out of 21 schools showed the necessity of a guideline about this topic. Conclusions: It became apparent that we don't provide enough disaster education for undergraduate students in Japanese dental schools. The result also suggested that we need a guideline to formulate a common understanding regarding disaster education in undergraduate dental curriculum. Every catastrophic disaster differs and many different tasks require to be dealt with depend on the disaster phase. We found that we should educate our students so that they will be able to join disaster relief activity as dental professionals who have enough ability to complete their missions in cooperate with medical professionals. (Granted by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, 2007.)