Effectiveness of the Boston University predental postbaccalaureate program on dental school academic performance

Abstract

PLEASE NOTE: This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community: please click Download and log in with a valid BU account to access. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact [email protected] (DScD) --Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 2011 (Department of Health Policy and Health Services Research).Includes bibliographic references: leaves 113-118.The need for diversity in the health care professions raised the opportunity for many medical and dental schools to develop postbaccalaureate (postbac) programs as one tool to help remedy this situation. However, few studies have addressed the effectiveness of these postbac programs, with most research focused on premedical postbac programs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Masters of Art in Medical Sciences-Oral Health track program (MAMS-OH) in enhancing predental postbac students' academic credentials when pursuing their dental school training. Our study sample included 448 graduating BUGSDM DMD students (DMD10-DMD13). Academic performance indicators for the MAMS-OH postbac students who entered Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (BUGSDM) were compared to their traditional counterparts in the DMD program who had not undergone any additional postbac training. Comparisons were also performed with a third group of 'other' graduate degree students. Results of our bivariate, bootstrap, and multivariate analysis all confirmed that there were no differences between DMD groups for their first year dental school GPA. Differences were found between groups for second year dental school performance, where MAMS-OH postbac students had lower GPAs (3.2/B+) than traditional DMD (3.4/B+) and 'other' graduate degree students (3.4/B+) (P-value=0.0001). However, there were no differences in 3rd year GPA, 4th year GPA, dental school retention, or for passing the NBDE part I. The best predictors of academic achievement in pre-clinica1 1st and 2nd years of dental school included undergraduate preadmission indicators. In contrast, the best predictors of clinica1 3rd and 4th years of dental school were having a family member in the field of dentistry and fathers' level of education. Comparisons were also made to determine whether Underrepresented Minorities (URM) performed as well as their dental school counterparts. In general, compared to URM-non-Traditional students, URM MAMS-OH postbac students or URM-traditional DMD students had lower preadmission scores, and lst year and 2nd year dental school performance, however, there were no performance differences by their third year of dental school. The results of this study suggest that the MAMS-OH program had a positive impact on academic performance of predental postbac students while in BUGSDM. Postbac students' acceptance rates into dental school and retention rates while in dental school were high. While in dental school, these students performed comparably to the traditional 'middle of the class' tertile students. BUGSDM predental potbac program offers a valid approach to increasing URM representation and graduation from dental school, which may increase access to dental care for URMs in the future