Gold crest award

My project was titled 'Teledentistry: Impact of COVID-19 and the future of oral care'. My report was structured in the format of a scientific research report, with references and in-text citations, and was 6800 words.

I had broken down my project title into four key aims: to explore the emerging technologies in teledentistry, the impact of COVID-19 on the rise of teledentistry, the future potential of teledentistry in providing solutions to the barriers in oral healthcare, and to improve public awareness and acceptance of new teledentistry technologies. These aims formed the 4 research sections of my report, and each section was broken down into specific objectives.

I considered a wide range of approaches for each section of my project. For example, when deciding how to identify the emerging technologies in teledentistry in Section 1, and how to explore barriers to oral healthcare and the potential of teledentistry in overcoming these barriers, in section 3, I initially planned to interview dental professionals. This would allow me to gain an in-depth, valid insight into the integration of teledentistry in regional practices, as I would gain information from a professional in the field. However, I chose to use secondary data for sections 1 and 3. This is because when I contacted regional dentists, they were unable to allocate a time slot for an interview. Further, I only had access to contact details for regional dentists nearby, which would give me a limited perspective of teledentistry adoption across the globe.

Secondly, I initially planned to use a survey to collect primary data on the impact of COVID-19 in dental practices. I had created a survey to measure the correlation between COVID-19 case rates and teledentistry utilisation. However, when I approached dental practices for this information, it was difficult for them to quantitatively assess their teledentistry utilisation as this would require time and effort, and most dentists were only able to offer a qualitative opinion on teledentistry utilisation, which would have been difficult to analyse and evaluate alongside quantitative COVID-19 case rates, making it difficult for me to conduct a primary research study on the impact of COVID-19 on teledentistry utilisation as I had initially planned. However, the pandemic had a significant role in the adoption of teledentistry, and I still wanted to study this as part of my research project. Therefore, I overcame this problem by using secondary data to meet my objective, and researched the impact of COVID-19 on teledentistry using online research articles and scientific reports.

My research project report was 6800 words, however I summarised the findings of my project into an infographic research poster to be displayed at a Lilingstone lecture.

This project was an invaluable opportunity for me to develop my knowledge of dentistry as part of my pursuit of the career, with teledentistry being a hot topic in 2024 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, this project counted towards the ‘developing skills and knowledge’ strand of my Gold Youth STEMM award. 

Tanya Sapra 6B3