Dental Students Learn with Virtual Patients
Students training to become the dentists of the future are now using virtual patients, after the previous real test patients complained of having too many holes drilled through their mouths.
The virtual training system is known as hapTEL (Haptics in Technology Enhanced Learning) and allows students to learn how much pressure should be put on to the teeth when drilling.
14 new work stations of the type have been placed in King’s College London, which recently came first in both the Guardian university league tables for dentistry, as well as taking the top spot for the same category on the Complete University Guide league tables.
While it may seem an unreliable way of learning for a skill that relies on the “feeling” you get through the drill, the use of haptics technology has made it a very real and useful way of teaching dental students.
The drill uses haptic technology, allowing –through the use of tactile feedback- the user to feel pressure and forces, despite the console being virtual reality. The main thing that this new technology will help students with, is to tell the difference between healthy, hard enamel and rotten soft enamel, and which of the two is to be removed (no prize for guessing which one).
The system helps students to develop both speed and skill as the lessons move on quickly, from removing quite obvious rot from a single tooth, to having to remove rot that is hidden by healthy enamel. The results are then shared with the student, telling them how much rot they removed, and how much healthy enamel they removed. Professor’s believe the device works both as a very useful learning tool, and creates friendly competition amongst the students, as Professor Cox explains, “it is quite exciting as the students get competitive and discuss it with each other, ‘I removed only 1% of health tooth, how much did you remove?’”
Previously, students worked on a prosthetic head, known as a “phantom head”, which cost a staggering £30,000-£40,000. The hapTEL however, only costs £10,000 per unit and as such is being heralded as a revolutionary new way of training the dentists of tomorrow.
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