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352765

Dental Education in Syria: A Kafkaesque Scenario

Article

Last updated: 20 Dec 2024

Subjects

-

Tags

Assessment

Abstract

In my first year as a dental medicine student at Damascus University, I was asked to cut in half a number of extracted teeth as part of my tooth anatomy module. After finishing my first tooth, I handed it in to the lab supervisor who signed my clinical card and marked it with a “Z minus". Of course, I asked him what this grade letter means and about the quality of my work but he dismissed me without addressing either of my questions. This scenario was repeated multiple times during my dental education and is still, until today, a common practice at Damascus University Dental School. I later learned that supervisors have their own codebook for grades that they are not allowed to share with students. But why? I asked myself this question on several occasions and even asked the supervisors, who as it turns out, do not know the exact reason. It was the dental school policy that the student stays blind of his/her grade on any assessed task. This situation and many other lived experiences during my dental training struck me as really Kafkaesque; I was being judged by people I do not see, by rules I do not know and the tragedy here is that I did not know the judgement until very later. This became a serious issue for me and my other peers, especially during clinical years in which we have the responsibility of treating a large number of patients.

DOI

10.21608/jhpei.2024.248235.1000

Keywords

dental education, Assessment, Syria

Authors

First Name

Ghaith

Last Name

Alfakhry

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Education, University of Oxford.

Email

ghaith.alfakhry@education.ox.ac.uk

City

-

Orcid

0000-0002-9694-8554

Volume

1

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

47433

Issue Date

2024-04-01

Receive Date

2023-11-12

Publish Date

2024-04-01

Page Start

36

Page End

37

Online ISSN

3009-7673

Link

https://jhpei.journals.ekb.eg/article_352765.html

Detail API

https://jhpei.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=352765

Order

4

Type

Learners/educators voice, and commentary.

Type Code

2,890

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Journal of Health Professions Education and Innovation

Publication Link

https://jhpei.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Dental Education in Syria: A Kafkaesque Scenario

Details

Type

Article

Created At

20 Dec 2024