compared to other professions why do dental students take so many credit hours?

[OBL1V1ON]

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why do dental students take so many hours compared to other professional students?! i was talking with a pharmacy student and they take 18 hrs their first semester. i was also talking with a med student and he was astonished when he heard what all we are taking. (all of us go to univ. of oklahoma) We dental students are taking 25.5 hrs this first semester.... and we already took 5hrs (gross anatomy) in the summer so that the fall semester wouldnt be too hard!!

also, if doing anatomy in the summer was to make the fall easier then why the hell throw in so many more classes. they said that anatomy used to be in the fall here at OU...if that were the case it would make 30.5 hours for the students to take....theres no way anyone could handle that much. so i know theyre adding bs classes....probably so they can charge more tuition, under the guise of making it easier for us on the boards.

any thoughts?

 

[gryffindor]

I think it had something to do with adding in tons of classes under the guise of being called a doctor.

 

[toofshucker]

It is so when someone says you aren't a real doctor, you can cay "uh-huh, we took all the same classes."

 

[OBL1V1ON]

gryffindor, i like the name. but werent they doctors after they graduated before the guise was used to add the new classes. i mean they that had school before are just as much d.d.s. as we will be...

 

[rocknightmare]

if you want to be a tooth mechanic please go to lab tech school.. you are going to be a doctor

 

[KOM]

...if that were the case it would make 30.5 hours for the students to take....theres no way anyone could handle that much.
any thoughts?

We're taking 27 credits this semester so we better be able to handle it. 🙂

 

[OBL1V1ON]

ok ok i realize that as doctors we need to take a heavy course load. i guess im wondering why only dental students need to take upwards of 25 credit hours. pharmacy students will be drs as well as will md students and they dont seem to be taking as much. i dont mean to sound like im complaining, i can handle this...easily in fact, with the right amount of diligence. but how can these other professional students be getting by with so little?

 

[54807]

why do dental students take so many hours compared to other professional students?! i was talking with a pharmacy student and they take 18 hrs their first semester. i was also talking with a med student and he was astonished when he heard what all we are taking. (all of us go to univ. of oklahoma) We dental students are taking 25.5 hrs this first semester.... and we already took 5hrs (gross anatomy) in the summer so that the fall semester wouldnt be too hard!!

also, if doing anatomy in the summer was to make the fall easier then why the hell throw in so many more classes. they said that anatomy used to be in the fall here at OU...if that were the case it would make 30.5 hours for the students to take....theres no way anyone could handle that much. so i know theyre adding bs classes....probably so they can charge more tuition, under the guise of making it easier for us on the boards.

any thoughts?

Perhaps it has to do with medical residencies? The medical school is not responsible for turning out a practitioner yet, right? Just someone who knows the basics (of alot!) so they can choose their specialty with confidence and be able to apply lots of the basic medical knowledge.

Dents dont have mandatory residencies and schools are supposed to be training students to be practitioners after only 4 years of training. And yes dentistry's scope is more limited than the medicine scope but it's also highly trained and specific.

Dont kid yourself. Dental students take ALMOST the same as the first 2 years of med school. And they skip the 3rd/4th year rotations to go directly into their 'residency', which is General Dentistry.

So perhaps dental training is more efficient because we dont 'waste' 2 years exploring all the medical specialties...although that might be fun. I doubt it would be of much use for us.

At the end of the day, you will win the pissing contest of most units vs the med students but they'll still be the real doctor in the eyes of everyone else!

 

[armorshell]

At the end of the day, you will win the pissing contest of most units vs the med students but they'll still be the real doctor in the eyes of everyone else!

But remember, all it will take for that to change is one popular movie or TV show to say it's harder to get into dental school than medical school and it will become an ad nauseum repeated fact, similar to how it's harder to get into vet school than med school (CSI, Seinfeld) or how dentist have the highest suicide rate (The Whole Nine Yards).

 

[KOM]

or how dentist have the highest suicide rate (The Whole Nine Yards).

I thought that was a horrible movie. Matthew perry will destroy anything that comes in his path. 🙂

But yep, I saw the piece of $hit movie and was not impervious to the $hitstorm it carried with it.

 

[ou_jay]

The reason is that dental school is just a hazing experience, especially at Oklahoma. The system is set up to repeatedly kick you in the balls. That's it. Their life sucked for for years when they were in school. So they're gonna make yours suck. So I hope you're in for a long, bumpy ride.

Seriously though, I think it has to do with the lack of residencies. If we spaced our didactic component out over four years w/ simple clinical rotations but no responsibility for comprehensive patient care it would be pretty easy. However, then we would have to do a residency of at least two years.