Exploration and practice of comprehensive clinical rotation internship for undergraduate dental students

Background University-based programs should aim to teach dental students about practice procedures to gain insight into day-to-day activities. This study introduces a newly established comprehensive dental professional curriculum, including an additional 9-week comprehensive rotation internship program. Methods All dental students from the Department of General Dentistry II under Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology (PKUSS) who completed a specialized internship in the five research areas (endodontics, periodontics, prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and pediatric dentistry), including an additional 9-week comprehensive rotation, were invited to participate in the survey (total n = 253 in years 2022-2024). Utilizing the complete sample population, we distributed the questionnaire electronically via WeChat. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the distribution of responses. The Chi-Square test was utilized to assess potential differences in response patterns between genders and between academic programs. Results The response rate was 98.8% (n = 250/253). A total of 70.4% of students believed that a 9-week comprehensive rotation was necessary to improve the program. 76.8% thought it was essential to introduce the dental comprehensive specialty. 75.6% felt that the dental comprehensive specialty internship should last longer, and 83.2% believed that it helped them develop comprehensive diagnostic and treatment thinking abilities. No significant differences were observed in the responses between male and female students (p > 0.05). However, 5-year program students demonstrated significantly higher preference rates for both comprehensive rotation (80.3% vs. 59.32%; p < 0.001) and dental comprehensive specialty internship (82.58% vs. 70.34%; p = 0.011) compared to 8-year program students. Furthermore, a significantly higher proportion of 5-year program students reported improvement in their prosthodontic competence following the training (45.45% vs. 27.97%; p = 0.004). Conclusion The comprehensive rotation model was effective in helping students establish comprehensive diagnostic thinking and train multi-specialty clinical skills. Further exploration and improvement are needed to effectively leverage the advantages of multi-specialty training in the comprehensive teaching clinic.