Internal diseases encountered by dental students while treating dental patients during undergraduate training

BACKGROUND: The number of internal diseases, disorders and syndromes (IMDDSs) encountered in dental practice is increasing. Dentists report to feel ill prepared by their undergraduate dental training for the management of IMDDSs. To increase the effectiveness of internal medicine training at dental school it might be necessary to focus on IMDDs encountered by dental students. The aim of our study was to identify IMDDSs dental students come across while treating dental patients during the clinical years of their undergraduate training.

METHODS: All dental patients treated between April and July 2015 by 116 dental students enrolled at the Medical Faculty of Hamburg University in the semesters 7 to 10 were anonymously analysed retrospectively with respect to age, gender, smoking habits, drinking habits, current or previous diseases, allergies, current medication, dental diagnoses, and dental treatment in the current semester. Identified IMDDSs were clustered and evaluated.

RESULTS: The 116 dental students treated 511 patients with 559 IMDDSs with a median of one IMDDS per patient. The IMDDSs encountered most frequently could be assigned to the subspecialties cardiology, endocrinology/diabetology, and rheumatology. Arterial hypertension occurred most frequently in dental patients, followed by diabetes mellitus type 2, and chronic bronchitis.

CONCLUSIONS: We identified the spectrum of IMDDSs encountered by dental students in the clinical years of their undergraduate dental education. Further studies are needed to test the effects of learning internal medicine with an internal medicine course based on the IMDDSs encountered by dental students and including additional IMDDSs specific relevance for dentists.