Formulation of Diagnostic Expertise in Oral Health Care and Its Application to Clinical Education

Visual inspection of a patient’s physical condition is an important step in the diagnostic process. This preliminary check is indispensable for dental/medical practitioners to properly assess, in a clinical environment, the presence or absence of abnormalities as well as the pathologic status of the patient. A highly skilled visual inspection results in effective treatment planning, whereas a crude, low-skilled inspection may likely result in diagnostic errors and subsequent prolongation of the treatment period. For students and inexperienced residents to acquire the highly sophisticated skill of visual inspection, it would be crucial to master skills and techniques performed by expert practitioners in the process of visual inspection. In this study, we focus on eye motion as a parameter that describes gaze behavior. This metric should reflect the expertise utilized by proficient dental practitioners during a visual inspection of a patient’s face and oral cavity. We select the orofacial region as the site for diagnosis. This region manifests an intricate three- dimensional configuration and is strongly relevant to food intake, respiration, verbal communication, and aesthetics. It is an important part of the body that requires proficient visual judgment for proper diagnostics. We have conducted an experiment. The participants were two highly experienced dental doctors. The results of the experiment show that there would be the patterns of eye movements for diagnosis and it would be categorized in some patterns.