Evidenced Based Education in Dentistry: Can it be Implemented in India?

The current method of dental and medical training is dependent on Professors, Obsolete Text books and opinion of the seniors who are often dogmatic and unresponsive to new ideas. Such a method is insufficient to carry on life long clinical practice in a very competent manner.The younger doctors are computer savvy, inquisitive and want to know more. In this climate the old system of education stifles them and kills their creativity. We in India are known for hard work, logical reasoning and cultural strengths. We have to incorporate this evidence based education into our mainstream medical, dental and nursing education if we are going to maintain and provide the personnel for the whole global village. The critical feature of EBES (Education Based Education system) is that the dentists, when faced with any problem in the clinical context of a patient, should be able to: perform a literature search; identify the evidence available pertaining to the clinical condition; critically evaluate it and determine the “Best Evidence” to diagnose / treat / manage the patient. The crux of the matter in this cycle is the ability of the dentist to search and retrieve the literature in the shortest possible time in an efficient manner and apply it in practice.