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PURPOSE:

Physician assistants can incorporate a variety of oral health services into their practices, but many physician assistant programs do not dedicate adequate time to oral health education. Our goal was to develop a novel and interprofessional oral health education curriculum model for our physician assistant students that could be adopted by other physician assistant programs and dental schools in the United States.

METHODS:

Curricula were created collaboratively and taught by dental school faculty with a focus on the primary care setting. Prewritten and postwritten tests were administered along with a clinical skills examination. Student and faculty evaluations were administered for pedagogical evaluation.

RESULTS:

Pretests and posttests demonstrated a 25% increase in knowledge acquisition (paired t test: P < .001). Physical examination skills testing achieved a 95% completion rate. Student and faculty evaluations demonstrated high satisfaction rates with the curricula delivery.

CONCLUSIONS:

Initial evaluation of this novel interprofessional curriculum for physician assistant students demonstrates that it was successful. It was well-received by the students and the faculty members and resulted in measurable knowledge acquisition. This model could feasibly be reproduced in other institutions for oral health education.