Dentistry is a distinctly surgical discipline, and most therapeutic activities rely on precise hand manipulation. While the general population can perform most of the therapeutic operations in dentistry with effective specialized training, there are significant individual differences in the improvement of hand manipulation skills. In this context, hand manipulation skills are defined as the degree and quality of completion of a hand manipulation with the same theoretical knowledge. For all medical specialties with surgical operations, the level of hand manipulation is another factor in addition to theoretical knowledge that affects the outcome of treatment. In terms of importance, the level of hand manipulation is less important than the level of theoretical knowledge for a single act of medical treatment, and its importance decreases further with the improvement of equipment and technology. However, this does not mean that the impact of the level of hand manipulation can be ignored, especially in the early years of a physician's career, where it is even higher than the level of theoretical knowledge.
The available research evidence points to no correlation between performance on standardized hand manipulation tests at entry and overall academic performance at graduation from dental school. However, deficiencies in hand manipulation skills can be such a severe blow to the professional self-confidence of dental students that these practitioners spend time and energy on hand skills training that could be used to improve their theoretical skills, and it takes longer for doctors to acquire the same therapeutic skills. Doctors may pass their qualifying exams with flying colors, but it takes them much longer to acquire the level of hand manipulation required for good treatment results. The lack of supply of good doctors will somehow push up the healthcare burden for the whole society.
The current hands-on training is too general, and the ability to improve relies on time and understanding
In the case of dentistry, the current hands-on training is too general, and it is mainly done by operating on models (including disembodied teeth and imitation head molds). During the operation, students not only need to memorize the theoretical knowledge required for the operation, but also need to remember the details of each step of the operation, which is a heavy cognitive burden. It is difficult to say whether a student's unsatisfactory operation result is due to insufficient theoretical knowledge or insufficient hand manipulation skills. Of course, after a long enough period of time and enough times of training, the final result will be effectively improved, but the individual differences in this process are extremely large. This type of training is like black box training, in which the teacher can only control the input (clear task criteria) and output (overall evaluation of the results), but is unable to give appropriate feedback on the specific details of the operation.
In the author's experience, it can take weeks or months for some students to effectively recognize the same operational error, and because of the lack of detailed evaluation criteria for the operational training process, it is difficult for the teacher to provide timely feedback and evaluation, and the students have to rely on their own comprehension to identify the error, which takes a lot of time.
Advantages of using standardized tests to evaluate hands-on ability
How to effectively decompose the various elements of hands-on ability training is a prerequisite for effectively improving hands-on ability. Therefore, we considered the use of a standardized hand manipulation test to evaluate the impact of traditional training methods on hands-on ability. By breaking down the elements for specific evaluation, we hope to design better treatments to enhance students' hands-on abilities. In our initial study, we found that the stability of students' hand manipulation did improve in the traditional way of teaching dental anatomy, but spatial perception and hand-eye coordination could be improved. As a result, we considered adding relevant training in addition to the traditional teaching methods to improve the manipulation ability as a whole. This part of the training is still in the process of design.