Dental Students', Alumni, and Dentists' Perspectives on Leadership: Impact of the Scholars Program in Dental Leadership

In 2006, the Scholars Program in Dental Leadership (SPDL) was created at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry with the aim of preparing dental students to take on leadership roles in their profession and communities. The aims of this quantitative study were to investigate how SPDL alumni and current participants evaluated this program; to assess whether SPDL alumni evaluated their leadership-related educational experiences, leadership perceptions, and attitudes towards leadership activities in dentistry more positively than did non-SPDL dental students and general dentists; and to explore if leadership-related educational/clinical experiences were correlated with these constructs. Participants were 218 of 431 dental students across all four years (response rate 51%), 32 of whom were participants in the SPDL; 32 of 53 SPDL alumni (response rate 60%); and 595 of 3,000 general dentists invited to participate (response rate 20%). Both current and past SPDL participants evaluated the program on average positively (3.75 and 3.92, respectively, on a five-point scale). Non-SPDL students and alumni evaluated leadership related educational experiences more positively than did the dentists (3.65/3.61 vs. 2.49; p<0.001). Their evaluations of different indicators of dental leadership differed as well. Students and alumni evaluated being recognized (4.40/4.60 vs. 4.20; p<0.001), making a contribution to the community (4.04/4.40 vs. 3.81; p<0.001), and views on practice efficiency (4.61/4.53 vs. 4.36; p<0.001) more positively than did the general dentists. The SPDL alumni had more positive evaluations of organized dentistry (4.17 vs. 3.77/3.71; p=0.045) and academia (3.97 vs. 3.48/3.45; p=0.01) than did the students and general dentists. Educational/clinical experiences were positively correlated with most leadership-related constructs. These results showed that the SPDL positively affected alumni perceptions of leadership indicators and attitudes.