I am not in academia, so I don’t know the evolution of the ethicists who say it is unethical for dental students to perform procedures, but I am not impressed with them. These rules they come up with do not affect them personally. They have the best dentist they can find, I am sure.
I think it is important for dental students to see procedures, and then do them themselves. Odontectomies are a key part of general dental education. Never was a real patient anything like a typodont in my hands.
Moreover, dental school treatment is different because patients go there knowing that they are being treated by predoctoral students, who presumably are being supervised by qualified faculty. Medical student education is different.
I don’t remember how many teeth I removed in dental school, but I did more than anyone in my class because my classmates and I would “trade” patients after we completed our requirements…and they knew I enjoyed doing it.
I had the advantage of having a father who is an OMS and watched him remove teeth on several thousand patients before I even got to dental school.
In my internship, I was shown how to remove teeth by the resident who had been doing it only one year longer.
Then, at my residency at Mayo, there were four Consultants (attendings), and they had all been doing it for 30 years. We were learning good habits.
Mayo had a preceptorship program then, and we had to first-assist on many cases before we were allowed to be the operating surgeon. Their philosophy was that resident education was a by-product of good patient care, rather than patient care being a by-product of resident education.
So I felt better prepared when I entered practice than if I had just been turned loose in a resident-run program. But that is just me.
And now, just like I don’t remember what it was like being single, or not being a dad, I don’t remember not knowing how to remove teeth.