1.4 Research and the dental student

There has been significant concern that the dental curriculum and system of clinical education, in particular, is not designed to take advantage of the explosion in knowledge in biomedical science and its application to the health of the public. Although there are some examples of innovations in dental education on a global scale that have the capacity to increase the assimila-tion of basic and clinical knowledge, most of the dental education models are mired in the traditional ‘2þ 2 ’ approach to education. This can be seen in North America and the European ‘2þ 3 ’ model or the stomatological ‘4þ 2 ’ approach. In each of these systems, the basic and behavioural science courses continue to be perceived as hurdles over which students must leap in order to reach the clinical programmes where there is little opportunity to use basic science informa-tion to advance patient care and treatment. Examples of issue