Technology enhanced medical education using smart glasses for oral and dental examinations: an observational pilot study | BMC Medical Education

According to the World Health Organization, good oral health allows a person to perform essential functions, like eating and speaking, and maintain self-confidence [1]. Oral diseases are ubiquitous and can have serious health and socio-economic consequences affecting the quality of life [2]. Dental caries are the most common chronic infectious disease in the world [3]. Oral diseases cause two-thirds of US adults to miss school or work due to emergency dental appointments [4]. Like in many other areas of healthcare, people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more disproportionately affected by oral diseases [1].

Oral health is closely entwined with overall health and awareness of this increased after the publication of “Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General” in the year 2000 [4]. One of the points made in this report was that many systemic diseases, such as diabetes and HIV, can have oral health manifestations [4, 5]. Conversely, poor oral health can cause other health issues, such as cardiac disease. Since more than a third of the United States population does not have dental insurance, many individuals visit the emergency department or are seen by their primary care physician for dental concerns [6]. For these reasons, it is important for medical providers to be familiar with the oral health exam.

In 2008, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) published a report titled “Report IX Contemporary Issues in Medicine: Oral Health Education for Medical and Dental Students” that emphasized the importance of adding oral health training to the medical school curriculum [7]. One of the necessary skills listed for medical students was an ability to “perform head and neck examination that includes recognition of caries, periodontal disease, dental erosion from eating disorders, cleft palate and other anomalies, mucosal changes, indications of oral cancer.” However, a survey of U.S. medical schools showed that the majority offer minimal oral health education, with hands-on training being the least taught [5]. This gap is reflected in medical students’ reduced confidence in performing the oral health exam [8].

There are established oral health curricula that are easily accessible, such as the Smiles for Life curriculum. However, this was designed as a lecture only format, which may limit its effectiveness as compared to a hands-on mode of learning [8]. There is data about incorporating oral health curricula into medical training [5]. However, there are still only a small number of reports on the assessment and feedback of this learning, especially of the hands-on training component [8].

One of the key components of hands-on learning is real-time feedback and the ability to ask questions and smart glasses can help facilitate this. Smart glasses, which are wearable technology devices, are capable of video recording and communication via voice commands and have been tested in various health-related applications [9, 10]. Some of the benefits in medical education can be attributed to its live video-teleconferencing (VTC) with the option of instantaneous feedback for the trainee [11]. With this technology, trainees can broadcast their “point of view” (POV) to supervising trainers and vice-versa [11]. Some current uses for smart glasses in medical education are using the device to evaluate suturing skills, vaginal delivery, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and variety of surgical procedures [11,12,13,14]. To the authors knowledge there has been no report on using smart glasses for interprofessional education of teaching oral examinations to medical students. It is our intention to use this device as a workplace-based assessment tool while the student performs an oral exam. Our pilot study’s objective was to analyze the utility of using smart glasses in teaching and evaluating the oral exam performed by medical students.