A Comparative Study of Postgraduate Periodontology Curriculum in Iran and a Selected Number of American and Canadian Dental Schools

The main objective of this study was to survey the postgraduate periodontology course in Iran and compare its curriculum with that of selected dental schools in the United States and Canada.
This was a descriptive study. First, data were gathered based on the information available on the universities’ websites. Then, postgraduate periodontology curriculum of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran, was investigated and compared to that of Harvard University, Boston University, University of Maryland, and University of Toronto. The studied variables consisted of number of years of education, dental education model, education curriculum, completed units, number of hours of completed units.
In all selected dental schools, the overall curriculum was course-centered with theoretical courses in the stomatology system accompanied with clinical courses. Great emphasis was placed on research. Harvard University provides academic, research, and clinical training, the period of its course ranged from 45 to 57 months, and the graduates received two periodontal degrees. Nevertheless, the main emphasis at the University of Toronto is clinical and research training and the duration of the period is 36 months, and the training is provided in the form of surgical or nonsurgical treatment. In the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the training consists of surgery, correction, and regeneration of oral tissue, implantology, and gingival surgery. The Department of Periodontics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences provides a curriculum similar to that of the University of Toronto. Its training program consists of courses on implantology, periodontics, tissue engineering, plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery of the mouth. This training program comprises 40 courses presented in 2784 hours.
It seems that filling the minds of the learners with medical, physiopathological, and stomatological topics reduces clinical activity and significantly reduces research and academic papers. Thus, the academic rating of dentistry schools in Iran can be improved through providing postgraduate periodontology courses similar to those provided by high ranking universities. This can also render fellowship and postgraduate courses more efficient for Iranian students.