I would like to comment on Dr. Richard Ranney and colleagues’ August JADA article, "The Relationship Between Performance in a Dental School and Performance on a Clinical Examination for Licensure: A Nine-Year Study."
By embracing class rank, the authors ignored a more important factor associated with clinical ability, namely, school curriculum. A modern curriculum, along with good communication, has been shown to increase educational preparedness for boards as well as clinical passing rates.1
The authors admit their analysis was "limited to that [one] school’s educational program and its facility." By generally ignoring that one school’s overall curriculum, which indeed outlines an educational program, the study conclusions become very shallow and biased. The authors should fairly review and compare the curriculums and graduate test results of a number of other schools to that one school’s curriculum and graduate test results, in order to fairly support or negate their conclusions.
Written examinations test the knowledge of dental graduates. Clinical examinations test skills and abilities, and are necessary to protect the public. Clinical experience and mock boards have been shown to be effective in predicting some clinical performance on dental licensure exams.2 Only clinical tests on living human beings, not manikins, give any real chance to protect the public from those who could "do harm" if licensed.
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