Abstract
The Nippon Dental University School of Dentistry at Niigata has adopted a dual system of teaching since April,2003 as a result of a structural reform. Under the new system, the teaching staff was divided into those who serve as educators and researchers and those who act as educators and clinicians. At the same time, pediatric dentistry and orthodontics were integrated into one, and a new course of study concerning restorative maxillofacial-oral function was added to the curriculum in a move to correspond to the need of reform in dental and medical education. In clinical dentistry, the pediatric dentistry clinic and the orthodontic clinic were merged into a single clinical unit, where staffers are expected to share their knowledge, technical skills and attitudes toward patients. The hospital attached to our university also needs to set up a system that meets the changing requirements of dental health care. It was against this backdrop that we distributed a questionnaire to a total of 280 orthodontic patients visiting the pediatric dentistry / orthodontic clinic asking them about the convenient hours and days of the week of consultations. The following is a summary of our findings:
1. Many patients who visited on weekdays and Saturdays had days off in mind.
2. A majority of patients who visited on weekdays visited on Tuesdays. Asked what day of the week they like to visit the clinic most, those who said they prefer Wednesday accounted for the largest number of the respondents.
3. The most crowded consultation hours were between 4 p. m. and 5 p. m. weekdays and between 2 p. m. and 3 p. m. on Saturdays. The time frames were consistent with what the patients polled wanted. Asked what time they would like to visit the clinic in the future, most of the respondents said they would like to visit on in the late afternoon of weekdays and on Saturday morning.
4. A majority of the patients surveyed could wait 15 minutes to 30 minutes at the longest.
5. The majority said they would not mind if treatment would last 30 minutes to one hour.
