advice for perio specialty???

[dntlqt]

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im a freshman dds student and have been giving serious thought to a perio residency after graduation. i havent actually yet observeed a perio practice, but it seems to be a great area with all kinds of new research & restorative materials. is it too early for me to be planning a career in periodontics? what are the pros & cons of it? is it more or less competitive as ortho, oms, or endo?

dntlqt
U Maryland
c/o 2008

 

[grtuck]

The best thing to do would be to get to know some of the residents, and go assist in the perio clinic. That will help you to be sure that is what you want to do, and help you to prepare for entering into that fieldif you decide to. As far as competitiveness (?) goes, I'm sure that you'll hear all sorts of opinions on it, and I really don't know for sure. Though I have HEARD that it is easier.

It is a very cutting edge field from what I have seen, and Implants are way cool, so if you think you will like it, then give it a shot.

grtuck

 

[Dr.SpongeBobDDS]

One of the perio residents at my school told me that if you are at least in the middle of your class you will get in somewhere - maybe not your first choice - but somewhere. Of course things could be different in 4 or 5 yrs when you get around to applying - especially with implants taking off and perio emerging as the go-to specialty for placement.

I wouldn't finalize my decision now though. Keep your mind open; there are a lot of possibilities out there. 🙂

 

[toothcaries]

this may be thread jacking...


...but why are gumdocs placing implants and shucking 3rds?




as a gp, if it's a simple placement or extraction, i would do it in house...
...and if it was over my head i'd probably be more inclined to refer to a OS for those procedures...

what is the reason for the overlap between the 2 specialties?

 

[Dr.SpongeBobDDS]

perio doing 3rds? I have never heard of that. I can't imagine a GP sending wizzies out to the perio - unless there just wasn't an OS nearby. I can see the implants though. Everybody's trying to get their piece of the implant pie; I have heard of endos doing "root replacement". I have even heard of "surgical" prosthodontists who place and restore their own implants. If I was sending implants out of my office, I think I would tend towards perio. It just seems like they would keep a closer eye on the tissue esthetics - no offense you OMS guys. 😀

In any case, I'm sure you're right about the majority of implant placement being done by GPs in the future. For one thing, the guy who has to restore the the implant (the general dentist) is gonna make darn sure it's placed correctly. But even though the majority of endo is done by GPs, we still need endodontists. There are always gonna be guys who just don't like certain procedures.

 

[northcity]

I agree with the above statements if you have good stats (definitely better than middle of the class) you will get in somewhere, but most likely not your first choice.i just got accepted to a perio residency, and i had pretty competetive stats. Perio is a great surgical specialty, which also makes alot of money on hygeine as well. The trend in the future of dentistry (implants, grafts, tissue regeneration, tooth buds) are all in the perio "realm", which i feel will make it much harder to get into within the next couple of years. Definitely wait until you get some clinical experience until you determine what you want to do, and good luck.

 

[Gutta Percha]

The last time I talked to the Becker brothers they told me perio was dying. Their nephew was going into a perio residency at the time they told me this.
But if you do decide to be a periodontist then contact them in Tucson b/c they know everything about perio.

 

[dntlqt]

thanks guys for your help. ill follow up with the facutly at my school and see what they have to say. before coming to d-school i had a pretty strong background in epidemiology, and had planned on being involved with dental health policy... so a specialty in perio & hygiene seemed the way to go. good luck to the new perio residents just starting.

dntlqt

 

[DDSSlave]

I wouldn't say perio is dying at all. Not in my area of the country at least. It does seem to be changing. Disease seems to be on the decline and esthetics and implants seem to be increasing. Taking out 3rd's is officially a fairly new concept brought about in the last yr or 2. Being so new, I'd say it will take some time for most GP's to warm up to the idea. However, I certainly don't think it's beyond their expertise. If I was the referring GP, I'd refer the surgery (say an implant) to the surgeon who will 1) do exactly what I request without changing the game plan mid-surgery 2) will handle the soft tissue with care and affection and 3) will be humble and caring to me and my patient. For many GP's this is a local OS and for others it's a periodontist. For many of these areas of overlap, it is the skill of the surgeon and their personality that count, not their specialty where each is equally qualified.

Perio programs are in general easier to get into, but there certainly are some perio programs that I'd say are more competitive to enter than ortho.

 

[northcity]

ohio state, baylor, san antonio, kentucky are some of the best programs in the country, these are the ones which are the hardest to get into, and also which offer some sort of stipend. There are other programs which are not even worth applying to on the other hand as well.

 

[leafhound16]

northcity, do you know of any specific programs that aren't very good out there? just curious.

 

[drillerNfiller]

northcity, do you know of any specific programs that aren't very good out there? just curious.

I'm in the middle of interviewing at perio programs. It's hard to find much info about the programs , but http://www.perio.org/education/postdoctoral.html gives an estimate of the acceptance ratios and some other good stuff, although I'm not too sure they are all up to date. As for which ones are good and which ones arent so good I've found out it totally matters who you talk to. People out west are convinced their programs are the best in the country and people out east think their schools are better.

 

[Drtrigeminal]

I also applied for Peio this year and was just recently accepted. I think the specialty holds an exciting and promising future. Where did you apply 'drillerNfiller'? How are your stats? I wish you luck!

 

[northcity]

Leafhound, Programs from which i know are struggling at the current moment are UT-Houston, Florida, UCLA. I am sure there are others but from the interviewees and faculty that i have talked too during the interview process, these schools almost always come up. Let me know if you have anymore ?'s.

northcity, do you know of any specific programs that aren't very good out there? just curious.

 

[Temple 2006]

I also applied for Peio this year and was just recently accepted. I think the specialty holds an exciting and promising future. Where did you apply 'drillerNfiller'? How are your stats? I wish you luck!

Hey there.....could you let the few of us floating around in here that are interested in Perio what your dental school career consisted of, GPA, Boards research...all that good stuff and where are you going and where did you go to school. Thanks alot...what was the interviews consist of and what were they like?

 

[zimaad]

This may be my just not knowing, but the original post mentioned Perio having new restorative materials. Just curious as to what restorative work Periodontists do. I've observed a good amount of Perio and they use materials such as fake bone and films to keep tissue from growing where they want bone to(can't remember name of it) .. but don't remember seeing much restorative work.

 

[UTDental]

Does anyone have any info about the perio program at UIC (Chicago)? Any info would be appreciated

 

[northcity]

do not know much about the chicago program, but there are many good ones out there which also offer a stipend.

Does anyone have any info about the perio program at UIC (Chicago)? Any info would be appreciated

 

[drillerNfiller]

Hey there.....could you let the few of us floating around in here that are interested in Perio what your dental school career consisted of, GPA, Boards research...all that good stuff and where are you going and where did you go to school. Thanks alot...what was the interviews consist of and what were they like?

Im in the top 1/3 ish at columbia (we don't have class rank or gpa), 89 part 1, i have lotsa extracurricular activities, some research, a publication, etc.
I applied all over the place and got interviews from most I applied to-Baylor, UT Houston, Columbia, West LA VAMC, USC, Harvard, Florida and Nova, but still dont know where I'm going yet. most of my interviews were pretty staright forward with questions about perio, dentistry in general, my college, research, etc. West LA asked harder "life" questions, like "how have u used your strenghts in the past to overcome failure", and "how have you been able to overcome your personal differences with a student, teacher, coworker, ....yadadyadayada"

..as you can see not quite as comnpetitive as some of the other more popular specialties right now. hope this helps

 

[whiteE8]

hi,
im just curious if perio programs at columbia, harvard, tufts, nyu, and USC are worth applying to. i've heard that the program at harvard, despite of the school's name value, is not much preferred by many dental graduates.
any thoughts regarding the above mentioned schools will be appreciated!

thanks

 

[Zurik5]

Anyone interested in the SLU program?

 

[UTDental]

I did an externship there. The nice thing about SLU is that there are 3 separate clinics so you see a wide variety of patients. The drawback is the tuition to go there. Just my two cents.

 

[drillerNfiller]

hi,
im just curious if perio programs at columbia, harvard, tufts, nyu, and USC are worth applying to. i've heard that the program at harvard, despite of the school's name value, is not much preferred by many dental graduates.
any thoughts regarding the above mentioned schools will be appreciated!

thanks

I dont know about nyu or tufts, but I recently interviewed at columbia, harvard and USC. One thing all of these programs have in common is that they all cost a fortune (30K+/yr) to go to. Personally I liked Columbia and Harvard and I hated USC. USC was much diferent than the other programs I visited. They basically spend the whole first year doing scalings and non surgical boring stuff. I also found it a little weird that they told me they only use autogenous materials. So you get no experience with membranes or any of the non-autogenous grafting materials. Columbia seems to have a pretty good program,thats where I goto dental school so I know a little about it. The residents all seem pretty happy here and they do a good amount of surgeries. For the most part I have heard good things about the faculty here. BUt if you plan to live near the dental school be prepared to live in the dumpy part of NYC for 3 years. I also liked Harvard. It is such a small school that it seemed like you have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want. I have heard that they don't do as many surgeries as some other places but all of the residents i spoke with seemed confident that they were getting more than enough clinical experience. Just my thoughts.