Indian dental students catch up with global trends

iTunes U, a part of the iTunes Store which features over 200,000 free educational audio and video files viewable on the iPod, iPhone, Mac or PC from top global universities and organisations is now officially reaching Indian students.

Taking the lead are dental students and professionals, who can now access video and audio files of the latest developments in the field of dental implants. These educational audio and video files are an innovation by Nobel Biocare, a world leader in restorative and aesthetic dentistry, to give state-of-the-art dental education to millions of people.
Through this new educational platform, Nobel Biocare will add strength to its university partner program, a peer-to-peer collaboration that assists academic dental institutions in over 30 countries to integrate the latest Crown, Bridge, and Implant coursework into their undergraduate programmes. "Our mentors have been teaching oral implantology modules of the Indian dental curriculum in the top 20 dental colleges in India.

With our educational content on iTunes, we can help thousands of students in the 128 odd Indian dental colleges in India and learn about the A toZ of advances in the field," said Sameer Bhat, country head, Nobel Biocare. This includes step by step demonstrations through audio, video and animations on Nobel's science-based treatment expertise, implant restorations and CAD/CAM dentistry concepts.

Anyone who knows the market knows that this focus on implantology can help create a lucrative niche in the coming years. "Today, of the 80000 dentists in India only 1000 are proficient in performing implants," said Bhat. He added, "Indians are increasingly becoming aware of dental hygiene. A staggering 1.5 million dental bridge operations are done every year. They are highly unreliable, and do damage to healthy teeth. On the other hand, an implant has a durability of over 10 years and is completely computerised." Due to this obvious advantage implants are costlier at around 20,000-40,000 per implant but are still gaining popularity in India. Therefore, studying them can make a world of difference for dentistry students.

Taking note of this, Manipal University has launched India's first advanced certificate oral implantology programme for a duration of one year in September. "At least 50000 students pass out of dental colleges each year with little or no knowledge of implant dentistry. As the national curriculum just has a single module on it. Our course includes live practice on patients and curriculum which matches global standards, as it has jointly been developed with Nobel Biocare mentors," said Dr Suchetan Pradhan, faculty, Implant programme, Manipal University.