Relationship between broken appointments and dental students' clinical experience level.

As more dental schools adopt a comprehensive care model focused on patients’ needs rather than a certain number of required procedures, clinic time utilization by students is coming under increasingly close scrutiny. This article presents an analysis of the influence of broken appointment rates on dental students’ clinical experience levels. The total percentage of broken appointments experienced by each student from the classes of 2010 and 2011 at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine during his or her clinical education in the junior and senior years was determined, and the impact of the broken appointment rate on students’ clinical experience levels was analyzed. The results show a statistically significant difference regarding the percentage of broken appointments between the classes of 2010 and 2011: 18.64 percent and 14.44 percent, respectively. When the rate of no-shows was compared to the students’ clinical experience level, a weak but significant negative correlation was determined for the class of 2010 but not for the class of 2011. It is concluded that the rate of broken appointments accounts for a small part of the variability observed in the number of clinical procedures performed in the predoctoral clinic. When this rate is lowered below a threshold of 14.5 percent, broken appointments seem to have no influence on students’ clinical experience level.