The dentist's main working area is the head and neck region, which is innervated by the cranial nerves. On a daily basis, dentists must administer local anaesthesia to ensure pain-free treatment and differentiate between dental pain and neuropathies to avoid mistreatment. Therefore, neuroanatomical training, especially on the cranial nerves, is of immense importance for clinical practice. In order to adopt the curriculum, it is essential to constantly evaluate the quality of the training and to investigate whether there is a correlation between the students' performance and the relevance of the subfields to their work. To address this issue, the results of MC exams in the neuroanatomy course for dental students at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin from winter semester 2014/2015 to winter semester 2019/2020 were analysed. Each question was assigned to a specific subfield of neuroanatomy. We then compared cranial nerves and cranial nerve nuclei (clinically relevant) with the remaining subfields (clinically less/not relevant) to investigate whether students performed better in anatomy subfields that are more aligned with the clinical practice of a dentist. We also conducted an anonymous survey (n=201) of the dental students. From winter semester 2014/2015 to winter semester 2019/2020, students performed significantly (***, p< 0.001) better on the clinically relevant questions of the MC examination than on the less/not clinically relevant questions. However, when looking at each of the eleven semesters separately, only three semesters actually performed significantly better on the clinically relevant questions. Our survey also showed that students perceived the subfield of cranial nerves and cranial nerve nuclei to be the most relevant and studied it more intensively out of their own interest. The study showed that students perceived the subfield of cranial nerves and cranial nerve nuclei to be the most relevant. However, there was no direct correlation between student performance and clinically relevant questions. Using student performance alone as an indicator of relevance is not optimal, as factors such as motivation to learn can have a significant impact. Greater clinical relevance influences what students learn more intensively out of their own interest, but does not influence the results of the MC examination in favour of the subspecialty. Based on the available evidence, it is recommended that the structure of the neuroanatomy course be reconsidered.

中文翻译：

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柏林夏里特医学大学牙科学生在神经解剖学不同子领域的学习表现比较以及第四临床前学期神经解剖学课程的评估

牙医的主要工作区域是头部和颈部区域，该区域受脑神经支配。牙医每天必须进行局部麻醉，以确保无痛治疗，并区分牙痛和神经病变，以避免虐待。因此，神经解剖学训练，特别是脑神经的训练，对于临床实践非常重要。为了采用该课程，必须不断评估培训质量并调查学生的表现与子领域与其工作的相关性之间是否存在相关性。为了解决这个问题，我们对柏林夏里特大学医学院牙科学生从 2014/2015 年冬季学期到 2019/2020 年冬季学期的神经解剖学课程 MC 考试结果进行了分析。每个问题都被分配到神经解剖学的特定子领域。然后，我们将脑神经和脑神经核（临床相关）与其余子领域（临床较少/不相关）进行比较，以调查学生在与牙医临床实践更一致的解剖学子领域是否表现更好。我们还对牙科学生进行了一项匿名调查（n=201）。从 2014/2015 年冬季学期到 2019/2020 年冬季学期，学生在 MC 考试的临床相关问题上的表现明显优于临床相关性较低/不相关的问题（***，p < 0.001）。然而，当单独观察这十一个学期时，只有三个学期在临床相关问题上实际上表现得明显更好。我们的调查还表明，学生们认为脑神经和脑神经核子领域最相关，并出于自己的兴趣对其进行了更深入的研究。研究表明，学生认为脑神经和脑神经核的子领域最相关。然而，学生表现与临床相关问题之间没有直接相关性。单独使用学生表现作为相关性指标并不是最佳选择，因为学习动机等因素可能会产生重大影响。更大的临床相关性会影响学生出于自己的兴趣而更深入地学习什么，但不会影响 MC 考试的结果，有利于该子专业。根据现有证据，建议重新考虑神经解剖学课程的结构。