former dental student

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BulovaInDent

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"This school," "this school," "this school"

How is this supposed to help anyone unless we know the actual school? :/

I'm really sorry about your situation, OP!
 
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hope it's not mine
 
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What school is this? You can PM if you can disclose publicly.
 
Sorry to hear that OP. It always amazes me that schools would dismiss a student for "bad handskills"; especially when they have a whole other year to develop them. How bad would someones skills need to be? IMO dental school activities have not been difficult to the degree that someone with poor skills couldn't adapt,to or develop, the skills. It isn't like some sort of high artistry where you're born with it or you're not.
 
yappy said:
Sorry to hear that OP. It always amazes me that schools would dismiss a student for "bad handskills"; especially when they have a whole other year to develop them. How bad would someones skills need to be? IMO dental school activities have not been difficult to the degree that someone with poor skills couldn't adapt,to or develop, the skills. It isn't like some sort of high artistry where you're born with it or you're not.
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Regarding the part in bold... At some schools, you start working on patients after your first year.
 
Sorry that sounds like an unfortunate situation. This is the first time I've heard of dentist parents and friends coming into the sim lab to give private lessons...i don't think this would fly at my school because there would be an unfair advantage given only to select students and not all. what do you mean by dismissed students having had no prior dental field experience? like no shadowing? how'd they get in with no shadowing? or do you mean no dentist parents because i don't think it really helps to have dentist parents for learning operative.
 
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wow..that is crazy...wonder if it is Pacific, NYU, or UT-San Antonio?? There have been similar threads around here from students from those schools.

P.S. from OP's wording it is a "college of dentistry" so hopefully us going to "X school of dentistry" are safe...well at least I'd like to think so :rolleyes:
 
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I think it is one of the Texas schools. I've heard of this happening at one of them before; I can't remember which is is, though.
 
sgv said:
This is the first time I've heard of dentist parents and friends coming into the sim lab to give private lessons...i don't think this would fly at my school because there would be an unfair advantage given only to select students and not all.
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What's so unfair? Anyone can help anyone else...faculty members, upper classmen, bf, gf, classmates, dentists, family, strangers, etc. It's only private practice sessions, NOT practical exams or national boards.
 
BulovaInDent said:
Welll, I have gone thru my first year of dental school and now can write these stuff

I would advise applicants to not just randomly pick 20 or 30 schools to apply to b/c sometimes this can get back at you

I used to be a dental student at a dental college that I will not name anyways, the college dismissed me after one year because they determined that my hand skills in dent hinders me from progressing

this college of dentistry has a tradition of dismissing somewhere from 1 to 5 students every year because they feel like the student cannot handle dental school

and many of the former dent candidates they dismiss were people that had no prior background in d-school or the dent field

meanwhile, those d-school undergrads that do succeed are those that either have parents who are dentists, friends/ students from another dental school or international students who were in dentistry in their home country Countless times have I seen those people come into the sim lab to help their friends/students....

most of the faculty are useless here b/c most are from international dent that have never or lacked a dental license in the state to practice

Some of the faculty here would actively tell students not to email or to ask questions in class because they don't have time or they pretend that they were in a meeting and when students try to view their tests after the class is done, the students would be ignored and faculty would pretend to lose the tests another excuse faculty has is that the tests are the school's property (true) but they can't review the tests with you.

furthermore, when I talked to some senior d4/ residents from this school, they say this activity has occurred at this school for a long time.
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OP,

If you are at San Antone, then I think the administration there is just malignant. Do whatever they ask and know that you are probably better off in the long run. There are TONS of terrible dentists out there, and I guarantee you that you won't be one of them.

Just work with the admin to do what it takes.

good luck.
 
Silent Cool said:
OP,

If you are at San Antone, then I think the administration there is just malignant. Do whatever they ask and know that you are probably better off in the long run. There are TONS of terrible dentists out there, and I guarantee you that you won't be one of them.

Just work with the admin to do what it takes.

good luck.
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San Antonio is not the only school that kicks their students out for not having hand skills. EVERY school does this. And we need less dentists with terrible hand skills, not more of them.
This is what happens when you do not have any way to measure a person's hand skills in the standardized exam, ever since they took out the soap carving back in the day. It wasn't perfect, but it was something.
The PAT will give you the best correlation for hand skills, but that correlation is only around 60% at p=0.05, compared to around 85% correlation in the Academic average for performance in the basic sciences. (DAT user manual)
You take in a bunch of kids and some of them just don't develop their hand skills fast enough, or just never develop them.
At some point, it's time to stop blaming the schools, and realize that dentistry is not for everyone.
If OP does not have hand skills, then they can try other fields that do not require them as heavily as dentistry. Pharmacy is a good start.
 
Sorry to hear that OP.

What happens if you go to school for a year or two, and then get booted after investing THOUSANDS of dollars worth of application fees, undergrad debt, student debt, and time? Just apply to pharm school? With what money? What if you are not interested in pharm school at all? Will other professional schools even consider you after being dismissed from D school? This sounds like a really unfortunate situation.
Do schools provide dismissed students with resources for other career opportunities, or options to help them manage their now worthless DS debt? If they don't, I think that is pretty irresponsible. Many people don't have a financial safety net, and they are relying pretty heavily on completing their education to pay off their loans.
 
AlbinoPolarBear said:
San Antonio is not the only school that kicks their students out for not having hand skills. EVERY school does this. And we need less dentists with terrible hand skills, not more of them.
This is what happens when you do not have any way to measure a person's hand skills in the standardized exam, ever since they took out the soap carving back in the day. It wasn't perfect, but it was something.
The PAT will give you the best correlation for hand skills, but that correlation is only around 60% at p=0.05, compared to around 85% correlation in the Academic average for performance in the basic sciences. (DAT user manual)
You take in a bunch of kids and some of them just don't develop their hand skills fast enough, or just never develop them.
At some point, it's time to stop blaming the schools, and realize that dentistry is not for everyone.
If OP does not have hand skills, then they can try other fields that do not require them as heavily as dentistry. Pharmacy is a good start.
Click to expand...
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sgv said:
Sorry that sounds like an unfortunate situation. This is the first time I've heard of dentist parents and friends coming into the sim lab to give private lessons...i don't think this would fly at my school because there would be an unfair advantage given only to select students and not all. what do you mean by dismissed students having had no prior dental field experience? like no shadowing? how'd they get in with no shadowing? or do you mean no dentist parents because i don't think it really helps to have dentist parents for learning operative.
Click to expand...
 
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I wonder what made them say you had bad hand skills?
Are your class 2's f***ed up. Do you always over reduce your preps? I don't even think dentistry need that much precise artistry. It's just a bunch of crooked lines, elevations, dips, and pits that you are trying to restore..And preps are just the same thing that it's simple that it only a few pages to explain. I mean, I think one can only be handicapped to be kicked out of Dental school for bad hand skills.
 
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