"Much has been written about the growing indebtedness of dental students. How will your school address this issue?
Dr. Serio: We can't address the student indebtedness problem completely. In southwest Virginia, there's about three dentists per 10,000 people, or about half the national average. The question is, how do you get dentists to come here? First, we need to recruit both at the high school and college level in places where dental schools have not traditionally recruited. I recall that when ECU recruited for its students, in-state applications to Chapel Hill went up, just due to ECU's recruiting. Some of these communities here need to support their residents. We'll develop a model where communities will help pay off the loan if their students will locate a practice there. Here's what needs to be done: 1) make the community part of the effort both in identifying students interested in a dental career; 2) have them support the dental student they want to support 3) reduce student debt 4) teach the business of dentistry to students: we'd teach wealth management, that is, work backwards. How much do I need, and how do I get there?"
The number of
50 Shades of Grey sales have also risen. I guess the number of erotica books that are sold also caused the increase of in state applications to Chapel Hill, right? How are you so sure that the rise in applications isn't due to US News ranking dentistry as the #1 job? Seriously though, it's sad that a dean is so easily establishing a causation relationship between ECU advertisement and the rise in instate applications to UNC dental school. I'm not surprised someone pushing for zero legit science research actually said this. Even if there was a rise in UNC applications, that would do nothing in addressing the unequal distribution of dentists. I don't know what he's getting at. Right now, everything he says is empty promises. He won't give any numbered estimate. He says he wants the community to fund the dental student's education. WTH? Does he think we live in a fairytale? If the surrounding community is relatively poor and can't afford even their own dental care, what makes him think they'll support the education of dental students? He says people will want to go to Bluefield because of their rural surroundings? WTH? The reason southwest VA is devoid of dentists is because the area is boring and has nothing around for 50 miles. Yet he thinks it's a selling point? Talk about a salesman's BS. He's basically saying, "Hey this car is made up of the cheapest parts. But on the flip side, it's affordable!"
If he says he wants the community to "invest" in the dental school, he shouldn't open the school, whose sole purpose is to educate dentists who have been leveraged with loan repayment to practice in Bluefield, until he finds said funds. Otherwise Bluefield is another stupid private dental school, contributing to the oversaturation of dentists and not addressing the issue of equally distributing dentists. If he doesn't find a way to leverage these dentists to work in Bluefield before the first class graduates, he's going to be the biggest d**k in dentistry.
This school and all the other schools that have opened recently are so backwards. The future of dentistry is preventative, minimally invasive dentistry. The future of preventative, minimally invasive dentistry is in research, which none of these quack schools have shown any interest in. Why invest in a school with such limited function and with so few goals, that are more aligned with the needs of the 1960's than 2013, in mind?
I'd hate to be in his shoes. Either all the state schools in needy states are going to follow suit in incentivizing graduating dentists to work within the state's needy area by paying for the schooling or he's going to be the biggest jack off who screwed over not only the graduating dentists but also the surrounding community. In a couple years, I'll find out if I love him or hate him. So far, it doesn't look promising...
From what I've read, he wants an affordable private dental school (lol, wut?), he wants the community to pay for a dentist's education (don't we already have the stigma as being wealthy professionals? How would you convince a working class individual to think that it's appropriate for his tax dollars to fund a dentist's education while his kids can't even afford to go to community college?), he expects dentists working in Bluefield area to be financially wealthy by teaching them "wealth management" by working "backwards" (If I'm reading this right, he wants to offer patients affordable care but make the dentists a lot of money?...What kind of nonsense talk is this?!), and he wants dentists and faculty to move to the middle of nowhere in VA, where the nearest supermarket can be a roadtrip away? If you don't end up leveraging your students with repayment, how are you going to make sure they end up practicing in the middle of nowhere VA? The perks of becoming a dentist is that it allows you to work and live almost anywhere. Who is to say that someone who lived in Tazewell county all his life and promises without any contractual agreement to practice in Tazewell after graduating from Bluefield, won't go back on his promises (just as Bluefield probably will) and want to explore the rest of the U.S. once he graduates? Wow...just wow...I want the dean to succeed but his goals for Bluefield aren't realistic.
Bluefield isn't going to be another ECU success story because unlike ECU, Bluefield doesn't have the financial backing from the state. How's he going to get the funding without the rest of the state's help when the surrounding citizens make only about $20-30,000/year?
http://www.usa.com/tazewell-county-va-income-and-careers.htm
If Bluefield ends up accepting the bottom half of applicants just because they're from SW VA, the school has failed because they've lowered the standards of our entire profession.
If Bluefield doesn't hold any leverage over its graduates in order to make them work in rural VA, the school's sole purpose of existence has failed. It shouldn't even exist at all.
If Bluefield does not reduce the cost to educate a dentist, the school failed to make its existence a better financial deal than to expand funding for NHSC style repayment programs within VA.
