Clinical Relevance Of Wax Carving And Its Integration In The Undergraduate Dental Curriculum: Students’ Perceptions And Experiences

Introduction: Dental anatomy is an integral component of the dental undergraduate curriculum that includes tooth carving exercises for the recognition of morphological and functional characteristics of teeth. The objective of the study was to explore the clinical relevance & predictive validity of tooth carving exercises and their correlation with clinical skills. Material and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2021 till October 2021 at constituent dental colleges of Dow University of Health Sciences. Undergraduate dental students in clinical years were targeted. A modified questionnaire comprising of 14 items was distributed through Google Forms. Data were analyzed using SPSS 21. Chi-square was used for finding a correlation between wax carving and clinical performance. Results: A total of 216 students consented and participated in this study. The majority of the participants (74.1%, p-value= 0.008) agreed that tooth carving helped them understand the intricacies of tooth morphology and (81.5%, p-value= 0.057) agreed that it developed manual dexterity and familiarity of dental instruments. Almost half of the participants (46.3%) valued its clinical significance in restorative dentistry. Regarding inclusion in the undergraduate curriculum 120 participants agreed that it was a clinically relevant subject (0.002). Conclusion: Dental students in their clinical undergraduate years valued the dental wax carving exercises taught in their undergraduate curriculum and these carving exercises helped them in understanding and learning tooth morphology and improved their clinical skills in restorative dentistry.