Overview of dental radiology education for medical radiology students in Taiwan

Feng-Chou Cheng; Mu-Hsiung Chen; Chih-Chung Hu; Li-Hua Tang; Yan-De Liou; Po-Fang Tsai; Chun-Pin Chiang

doi:10.1016/j.jds.2022.09.016

Overview of dental radiology education for medical radiology students in Taiwan

J Dent Sci. 2023 Jan;18(1):295-303. doi: 10.1016/j.jds.2022.09.016. Epub 2022 Oct 14.

Authors

Feng-Chou Cheng^{1

2}, Mu-Hsiung Chen³, Chih-Chung Hu⁴, Li-Hua Tang⁵, Yan-De Liou⁶, Po-Fang Tsai⁷, Chun-Pin Chiang^{3

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
³ Department of Dentistry, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁴ Division of Radiation Oncology, Department of Oncology, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Nuclear Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁶ Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hospital, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁷ Graduate Institute of Humanities in Medicine, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁸ Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
⁹ Department of Dentistry, Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, Hualien, Taiwan.

Abstract

Background/purpose: In Taiwan, the formal education for cultivating medical radiation technologists began in 1965. However, there are very few dental radiology curricula in Taiwan's medical radiology schools. We investigated mainly the appearance of dental radiology education for medical radiology students in Taiwan.

Materials and methods: We used documentary analysis, a survey of dental radiology education, and secondary data analysis in this study to find the appearance of Taiwan's dental radiology education for medical radiology students.

Results: There were currently ten medical radiology schools. Among them, five offered independent curricula in their subject schedules and another five had dental radiology education included in their general medical radiology curricula. Of the 53 dental radiology teaching hospitals, 21 (39.62%) were medical centers and 25 (47.17%) were regional hospitals, and these large hospitals were concentrated in the northern region of Taiwan. These large dental radiology teaching hospitals offered more training hours of dental radiology internship for medical radiology students and had a higher availability for the medical radiology students.

Conclusion: In Taiwan, the current status of dental radiology curricula in the medical radiology schools is indeed seriously insufficient. A dental radiology education system should be established in the future, including the innovative dental radiology curricula developed for medical radiology students and more dental radiology curricula designed for dental students. This in turn can create new career options for medical radiology students and new practice directions for medical radiation technologists, and then expand their potential involvement in dental radiology.

Keywords: Dental radiation technologists; Dental radiology education; Dentists; Medical radiation technologists; Medical radiology students.