I am currently a first year and it's clear that I am one of the worst in my class when it comes to handskills. I am in jeopardy of failing 3 classes this semester. There is literally no extra help available at my school until you fail. I am really thinking that dentistry is not for me and I should start looking into other options. Any thoughts? Do your skills have tutoring if you need it?
I hate dental school...
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If you're close to failing 3 classes it sounds like it may be more than just hand skills. Have you considered changing your study habits to make them more efficient? Maybe this would give you more time to practice your hand skills. Don't give up unless you really don't think dentistry is for you, you worked so hard to get where you are now and you're first year is approaching an end. If you can rally and pass those three classes you'll be 1/4 of the way there!
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Again which dental school do you go to???
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I have found that sharing strategies and techniques with some of my classmates has helped me with preparing for waxing practicals. Their bench instructor may have shown them a different instrument to use, a better way to polish, or maybe just some strategies to maximize efficiency and make best use of time. If you're having trouble in lab, I highly suggest working with a friend or two outside of scheduled lab time who consistently do well on their daily projects and practicals. Get their feedback and work to improve. I personally spend more time in lab than the majority of my classmates because it takes me longer to develop and hone my technique. Also, if you make a major mistake, try to correct that mistake so you don't make it again. Don't give up, just do something different, because what you have been doing just isn't working for you. Good luck!
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Hang in there! What classes are you in jeopardy of failing? Keep practicing your hand skills. Fake it until you make it.
dont worry about handskills; you can eventually teach a monkey to do class II's and crown preps. what classes are you failing? more than likely they're some science class that has no bearing on real-life dentistry. what i think is happening is that you are failing some science classes and having a hard time in dental school, and you now think you dont want to become a dentist. just relax. study enough to pass, and no more. stay late in the sim lab (i spent many long nights in the sim lab waxing up and carving, cutting preps, and setting teeth; and yes many times i questioned whether i wanted to become a dentist).
at the end of the day only you can truly decided if you want to become a dentist or not. however, consider this: if you were not failing your classes would you still want to quit?
at the end of the day only you can truly decided if you want to become a dentist or not. however, consider this: if you were not failing your classes would you still want to quit?
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Dental school bites major donkey nuts. Unfortunately, it is the only road to being a dentist. You either want it or you don't. Step up, strap on, and work harder than ever before. Alternatively, you can walk away. It's hard to get through dental school. Everyone stuggles with it. Anyway you look at it, if you aren't succeeding with how you are performing now then you will need to change something. With a post as vague as this one, no one knows what your specific problem is to give you specific advice.
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Dental school is hard. I was in the same boat. My hand skills were awful the entire first year and a half of dental school. Keep at it, though, and you can't help but get better. I was one of the slowest in my class to develop my hand skills, but by the time we got to clinic I was OK. That's why you get two years to practice before they really turn you loose on patients. The bad news, if you're like I was and not accustomed to failure, is that there's no substitute for hard work and perseverence. The good news is that if you keep at it, you'll get it. Dentistry can be a miserable educational process, but it's an incredibly rewarding career. Keep plugging away until you get there; you'll be glad you did. Good luck.
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WHEN YOU're not used to failing like most dental students are accustomed too, stress builds up and tensions flare up like no other. Just keep practicing on whatever you need to do, preps, carvings, waxing, etc... Seek help from your classmates, TA's, faculty.
Don't worry about your grades!!! If you're sucking already then you're proobably not gonna be specializing anyways..LOL just kidding!
Don't worry about your grades!!! If you're sucking already then you're proobably not gonna be specializing anyways..LOL just kidding!
The classes I am probably going to fail are a posterior crown prep class, a waxing class, and a restorative class (Class II amagams). It was just a lot of handskills classes for one quarter when I really have never done anything like this. Plus..I am a leftie and I have been told that tooth#30 is harder for me then my other classmates. I know it's not the whole problem but it's certainly not helping.
good point...If I was good at this stuff I think I would enjoy it. It's just so discouraging to always be told something is wrong--but then not be told how to improve it. Has the sim lab been helpful? We don't have them here---I debated going to a school with one but the school I am at is cheapest
if you fail these classes--you have to go through summer remediation..which I've heard the kids that do that turn out better clinically than those who just barely passed. However, you do keep that original "F" in your GPA...
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My school has the simulation clinic (with the GPS handpiece, etc), and I would definitely not choose a school based solely on this factor.
Hard work and persistence is what you need.
If they say something is wrong, ask why.
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At the end of the day, it's not what grade you made, but your current hand skills that count. GPA doesn't matter much in dental school, but skills DO.
by sim lab i dont mean those expensive virtual reality machines (biggest waste of money IMO) but i mean the lab where you can go practice your skills. at my school the lab was open till 10 PM every night and i would spend hours there every week. good luck
omar
Im glad im in dental school and I have every intentions to finish. But seriously though dental school really sucks and it is stupid. It is entirely to hard and half of the crap you learn is not even necessary. You don't need to know anything about Biochemistry, Anatomy (except for head and neck), Histology, and half the stuff you learn in Occlusion is completely unnecessary to practice dentistry. I mention some of the stuff I am learning/know to dentists that I know and they have absolutely NO CLUE what I am talking about. I know one dentist currently practicing and making a lot of money that couldn't even remember what an ameloblast was.
I honestly think dental school (undergrad too) is all about money and weeding people out. It should be condensed down to 2 years at the most and we should only learn things that are practical. Hand skills should be the most important thing by far.
Im not bitter about my grades or anything like that. I'm one of the top students in my class i'm just telling it like it is. So if you don't feel like you can put up with this nonsense for a few more years. If you don't feel like busting your ass to get through classes and material that have no relevance. Then I don't blame you at all.
Good luck to all of you.
I honestly think dental school (undergrad too) is all about money and weeding people out. It should be condensed down to 2 years at the most and we should only learn things that are practical. Hand skills should be the most important thing by far.
Im not bitter about my grades or anything like that. I'm one of the top students in my class i'm just telling it like it is. So if you don't feel like you can put up with this nonsense for a few more years. If you don't feel like busting your ass to get through classes and material that have no relevance. Then I don't blame you at all.
Good luck to all of you.
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So I agree with this post that dental school sucks. I have literally spent the night in lab practicing preps before a practical, gotten home at like 2am and though "this could not be my life". But I have to disagree with the it should be at most 2 years. Even with all of the classes that feel useless and like fluff (biochem I'm looking at you) I would rather know more than I have to and have it tucked away in some sort of distant memory than Dschool be some sort of technical degree where we only learn what to do and not the theory behind it.
Our school has us 1st years up in clinic assisting older students with their patient families who we will inherit once we get to 3rd year and honestly from talking to the third years and hearing them answer patient questions I can see how they have to pull from more than just "this is a prep this is how you fill it". Almost every patient asks about their existing health condition (physio knowledge) or the medications they are on (pharm). Just the other day one asked how filling material worked and what the blue light was for (biomaterials).
The point I am trying to make is how would you determine what is useful and what is 'practical', you don't know what kind of scenarios your patients are going to throw at you. They expect you to not only know how to fill teeth but how to answer questions about their overall well being because they assume that the 'Dr.' before your name means that you have the knowledge to help them or at least tell them where to get help beyond issues with their specific tooth problem.
When you say that you ask dentists what terms are and they don't remember, well that makes sense. Do you remember everything from elective courses you took in undergrad? I know I don't, it doesn't mean that I am not using prior knowledge because I can't rattle of definitions. I defy you to find a dentist who doesn't use any of their didactic knowledge in their practice. Just the simple practice of taking a medical history requires them to remember quite a bit about what they learned. Even if they can't define an ameloblast I guarantee they know that enamel doesn't regenerate - the overarching knowledge remains
Oh and for you to say occlusion is useless is insane, I agree it is hard/annoying to learn and sometimes it seems like tiny differences can change a definition of a term drastically but I have heard - unilaterally - that it is the most important didactic subject we take and one of the few subjects whose principles that we will use every day in practice.
To the OP, I don't know how it is at your school but if you go down into your lab after hours you might be able to find upperclassmen who are glad to give you help and feedback on your preps. You need to log some hard hours practicing, hand skills don't come easily to everyone but everyone can improve with practice and so can you. Don't give up.
Uninformed public: "Are dentists real doctors?"
Bitter med student: "Hell no! They only do 2 years of school!"
I really would have a hard time defending myself against that.
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That is why we need soap carving test as part of DAT. We had those for the Canadian DAT but unfortunately not the US one.
The Carving test is used to give the predent a preview of their hand skills and whether they are going to like working with their hands.
The Dentist is a hybrid technician and oral Physician NOT one or the other.
Unfortunately for those that found out that they don't have hand talent and hate the technical part of it become either Oral pathologists, Oral medicine or become a pure academician that don't require hand skills.
To the original poster: Don't give up yet getting your DDS, at least give the above named specialty a chance.
We NEED to bring the carving as part of DAT.
The Carving test is used to give the predent a preview of their hand skills and whether they are going to like working with their hands.
The Dentist is a hybrid technician and oral Physician NOT one or the other.
Unfortunately for those that found out that they don't have hand talent and hate the technical part of it become either Oral pathologists, Oral medicine or become a pure academician that don't require hand skills.
To the original poster: Don't give up yet getting your DDS, at least give the above named specialty a chance.
We NEED to bring the carving as part of DAT.
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But I bet you're way better at #19!
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AMEN anatty!
I just want to say that there is a 2 year degree out there in dentistry. It's dental hygiene. And if you get licensed in a state like I am then you can do restorative procedures. Being a dentist is more than just drilling and filling teeth. It's DIAGNOSING! And how can you come up with differentials if you don't have thorough training?
Want to know what was on my board exam for hygiene? Oral path, anesthetic, pharmacology, restorative materials, and most of all case studies. And we don't even diagnose!
As far as advice on developing skill in the lab, practice makes perfect. It takes a while to develope your skills. In dental hygiene school we did wax tooth carvings instead of wax ups and they drove me CRAZY!!!! My advice would be to get out of the lab. Go to a park with your carving instruments and a wax block. Carve the wax into a tooth. Or maybe try being creative and carve the wax into a miniature animal instead. It really doesn't matter as long as you are learning how to manipulate your carving instruments. Dentistry in an art - embrace it.
Good luck! You're going to be great. Don't give up!
Hahaha... No we don't.
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Not in my state you don't.
I respect the hygienists that work with me and what they find clinically, but there is much more to dentistry than being able to find a "light spot" on the mesial of #30.
If your association seriously thinks that being able to do restorative procedures is essential to the future of your profession, you are kidding yourself. Your association believes it will "increase access to care" by allowing RDHs to practice in critically underserved areas. It's human nature that those critically underserved areas will probably be high end shopping mall kiosks and boutique strip-malls with practices right next door to victoria secret and claire's.
Then we will find that the goal of "access to care" improvement also comes with the SAME overhead factors that will lead to similar priced fees.
I never said you don't need any background knowledge. I never mentioned Physio or Dental Materials as unnecessary classes. I never said there were dentists that don't use there didactic knowledge in there practice.There are pieces of information in every class we take that are useful and that will come into play in the future. Some classes are very important i.e. Pharmacology, Pathology, Physiology.
However, my point was that the MAJORITY of the things we learn in many of our classes are useless not that everything is useless. We should only have to learn the things we need to know and remember. There should be nothing that we learn that we can just ignore after dental school thats wasting time. We are wasting time learning and being tested on all the little details on ameloblasts if all we need to remember is that enamel doesn't regenerate.
If we cut down on all the fluff and unnecessary courses then you can be a successful dentist in much less than 4 years.
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I feel like you can never truely eliminate the "fluff" so to speak. Whatever stuff you think you don't need, another dentist might appreciate. Alot of the "fluff" is subjective.
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That was my point, you never know what is fluff and what isn't until you start practicing and by then what are you gonna do go to night school? I honestly don't think there are any basic science classes you can trim down any more than they do. UoP is 3 years and that's the most streamlined it gets and they still learn all the so called 'fluff' that you are objecting to
Andre3k what "majority" of stuff we have to learn do you think is useless?
90% of Biochem is unnecessary. As a practicing dentist you do not need to know how prostaglandins, fatty acids, ketone bodies, etc are made. You do not need to know how pyrimidines and purines are made.
I would argue that Histology to a certain extent is unnecessary. As a practicing general dentist how often would you break out your microscope and look at at a sarcomere, blood vessel enothelium, a thyroid gland, a thymus, a pancreas, a Hassel's Corpusle, the cap and bell stage of a developing tooth, a epiphyseal plate, an osteon??? Never. Unless you are doing some kind of research in with case you can go get a phd and learn all that.
For Anatomy, I would argue that as a dentist I don't need to know about every back muscle, every muscle of the hand and arm, blood vessels and muscle layers of the thoracic cavity. If its not head and neck we don't need to know it. Thats half the semester eliminated right there. How often is a dentist going to trace a problem in the oral cavity to the hemiazygous vein???? Never.
Its little irrelevant things like this in every class that you can trim down. If I had syllabi from every class i could name more things. Give me an example of a time when a practicing general dentist will absolutely need to know any of the things i mentioned above and I will shut up.
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It is a part of dentists job to answer questions about a patients overall well being. However, if a patient really has a problem outside of the oral cavity they need to see a physician not a dentist.
And I take that back most of occlusion is necessary i agree.
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What if you were doing PhD/DDS, or Pathology Specialty, or Anesthesiology specialty...
I agree with anatty. We are not dental monkeys (though we often feel like one in school...but that's another thread), but we are training to be dentists. People who walk through your doors are not just a first molar ready for a gold crown prep. We have to see patients as a whole person. So I appreciate the "fluff" classes, as some people call them. Even if they are not directly clinically applicable, I think it's nice to learn those things in order to gain appreciation for others.
What I don't like though, is how disorganized the curriculum is (at least in my school). It's not cohesive, has no logical flow, classes openly contradict or overlap with each other... All that I think I can do without.
What I don't like though, is how disorganized the curriculum is (at least in my school). It's not cohesive, has no logical flow, classes openly contradict or overlap with each other... All that I think I can do without.
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A lot of the "fluff" is because dentistry is a rapidly changing field and we have to have the foundation to read and understand the research and published literature. True, chances are slim that the hemiazygos vein will be mentioned in said dental literature, but the head and neck are attached to the rest of the body. Also, think about how much info. you learn that you quickly forget, especially the details. By making us learn beyond the minimum necessary material, it gives us a better chance to retain the major concepts that truly are important for years to come.
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Anyone who knows me will tell you that I hate biochem with the furor of 1000 suns, but like another poster said that kind of scientific knowledge is important in being able to read research papers and studies about things that will affect us as practicing dentists (the perpetual talk of a future "caries vaccine" comes to mine).
Also you are operating off of the assumption that everyone will want to be a hands on dentist like yourself. Some of our colleagues are bound to enter dental research, pathology and other fields where thinks like an osteon are important (just off the top of my head people doing research on dental implants - which will affect practicing dentists immediately - might want to know a little something about how bones work).
When it comes to anatomy be honest if they had thrown you into head and neck first thing it's likely that you would not have known how to even approach learning information. By starting us off in stuff that is less critical to remember they are also making us learn HOW to study that kind of material. Both your anatomy memorization and dissection skills were no doubt better by the end of the year when you finally started learning things in the head and neck region. Picture how you dissected at the beginning of the semester; now picture that skill level dissecting an eye - no good at all.
In any case any example you throw at me I can justify how we'd need it. Dental school is not an individual endeavour, they have to give many people the tools they need to pursue a wide variety of things. Just because you are not interested in research or looking at cell sections doesn't mean you colleague who is should be deprived of learning that or told to do so on his or her own time.
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So? Fail (if you have to) and get the required help. You've worked SOOOO hard to get into dental school and your just gonna throw it away? What a waste of ass space
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Agreed.
I also agree with cjb04. I think sometimes we forget to utilize one of our greatest assets in school -- our classmates. Get together with someone that really knows what they're doing. Sometimes they can show you a different approach or point out specifically where you're going wrong. Try to get as much individual attention as you can and don't give up.
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Do the summer remediation, take the F and move onto year 2. As long as you move on to the second year, what's the big deal? The point is to get through the 4 years of dental school and learn from your errors. You will continue to make mistakes, even as a dentist. As most of our faculty say, dentistry is not perfect.
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lol..again..not so great advice. Some schools make you repeat a year if you fail a course.
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I meant to say in the event the OP does fail, sorry. They have the option to do summer remediation, at least that's what I have read.
The only point to it is that the 69 remains on record, but from what I am reading in context is once the remediation is successfully completed the OP can move on to year two. And obviously there is gonna be a mention of successful remediation of the courses. If the school was going to outright make the OP repeat, they would have told them. Some schools have options to make up one or two course failures through summer remediation instead of repeating the whole year.
I don't understand how this is bad advice. If the OP has this option and move on, let them take it (in the event they need it). They will still have to complete the course in the same manner, and at the same time get better practice.
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Don't worry. I'm about to graduate and there hasn't been a week gone by when I haven't worried that even my best efforts at the clinical stuff aren't enough to get me through. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and cranking out the practice preps to improve. Even if you don't feel like you're getting any better, practicing definitely doesn't make you worse so keep at it.
Back in second year, I failed every fixed prosth exam except the final, but somehow passed the course. The first one, I tried to patch a bubble on the inside of my provisional and it got stuck to the tooth. Unfortunately this happened in the last five minutes, and when I finally got it off, it was in two pieces! In exam #2, I was polishing the provisional with discs, and it went flying across the room. Exam #3 was an open margin that did me in....etc. Even in the clinic (where we're allowed to cheat and patch with flowable composite) my provisionals look like blobs, but I'm getting through.
I've had lots of other disasters too, like:
-"Flaming" my newly finished molar waxup, only to have it melt into a puddle of wax
-Closing my articulator too hard on an occlusion project, causing the buildup to literally crumble (I learned in 4th year that this can happen in mouths too if an amalgam resto is too high)
-Dropping denture teeth onto the speckled floor, never to be found again, and having to explain to dental stores why I need new ones
-Giving myself nasty second degree burns with hot greenstick compound
-Melting a finished bridge waxup by putting it under the vaccuum mould
-Accidentally crushing a carious tooth I was extracting, then saying "Uh oh" in front of the patient
-Getting an onlay back from the lab with open contacts because I shaved off the proximal surface of the adjacent tooth during preparation...And having the instructor show it to all my classmates for a "learning experience"
-And the list probably goes on and on with klutzy things I've done that are often attributed to less than ideal hand skills...
I wonder a lot if I made the right decision going to dental school, but I just focus on the reasons I chose this over other fields and hope they'll still make me happy when school is over. I think you should make a deal with yourself: Get yourself through dental school, and give real life dentistry a shot for a few years to pay off your loans. It's going to be totally different from school. Then, if you decide it isn't for you, you'll be in a good position to do something else.
Back in second year, I failed every fixed prosth exam except the final, but somehow passed the course. The first one, I tried to patch a bubble on the inside of my provisional and it got stuck to the tooth. Unfortunately this happened in the last five minutes, and when I finally got it off, it was in two pieces! In exam #2, I was polishing the provisional with discs, and it went flying across the room. Exam #3 was an open margin that did me in....etc. Even in the clinic (where we're allowed to cheat and patch with flowable composite) my provisionals look like blobs, but I'm getting through.
I've had lots of other disasters too, like:
-"Flaming" my newly finished molar waxup, only to have it melt into a puddle of wax
-Closing my articulator too hard on an occlusion project, causing the buildup to literally crumble (I learned in 4th year that this can happen in mouths too if an amalgam resto is too high)
-Dropping denture teeth onto the speckled floor, never to be found again, and having to explain to dental stores why I need new ones
-Giving myself nasty second degree burns with hot greenstick compound
-Melting a finished bridge waxup by putting it under the vaccuum mould
-Accidentally crushing a carious tooth I was extracting, then saying "Uh oh" in front of the patient
-Getting an onlay back from the lab with open contacts because I shaved off the proximal surface of the adjacent tooth during preparation...And having the instructor show it to all my classmates for a "learning experience"
-And the list probably goes on and on with klutzy things I've done that are often attributed to less than ideal hand skills...
I wonder a lot if I made the right decision going to dental school, but I just focus on the reasons I chose this over other fields and hope they'll still make me happy when school is over. I think you should make a deal with yourself: Get yourself through dental school, and give real life dentistry a shot for a few years to pay off your loans. It's going to be totally different from school. Then, if you decide it isn't for you, you'll be in a good position to do something else.
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You're in Howard - what are you complaining about?
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I don't get why everything has to be made into a race issue
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lmao I can't belive you said that
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What do you mean by that? Is there something wrong with Howard or Howard students?
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No theres nothing wronng with it. just that you nee d like a 14 dat score and a 2.0 gpa and also some other qualification. just is probly not a very hard school
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Sorry, but there is no such thing as a dental school that is not very hard. There is simply too much information to be learned for it to be "easy". Also, undergraduate GPA and DAT don't necessarily correlate with a student's potential to succeed in dental school. What matters more is persistance, dedication, and time spent studying. Howard is currently accredited without any reporting requirements, so they are doing a good enough job of educating their students in the eyes of the ADEA.
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Another example why I can't take most pre-dents in this forum seriously...
