At the U of MN the dental students take gross anatomy, how many other dental schools take that? I kinda wonder how important it is to know that the peroneus brevis is intervated by the superficial peroneus n. if you are a dental student. Ok, due to the responses, i will rephrase this. How many dental schools have gross anatomy that is geared for dental students vs a gross anatomy class offered for medical students in which the dental students have to take?
It is typical for a medical student to ask this question. You obviously did not explore the possibility of becoming a Dentist, nor do you understand the profession of dentistry. Maybe when you get to head and neck you will understand why we dental students have to know gross. Yes, just about every dental school I know has to take gross. Maybe not as involved in some areas as med students. Forgive me, but just that you ask a silly question as this, makes me angry. Med students are supposed to be smart. Why don't you befriend a dental student at your school and see what dentistry is all about. It is not just drilling and filling. Hope I didn't offend you with my reply, but I am sick of the age old stereotypical attitude.
oldman, your age is showing, as of last year it's now the fibularis brevis innervated by the superficial fibularis nerve
It's probably not crucial to know the innervation of peroneus brevis as a practicing dentist. But our board exams have a 100 question section titled "Anatomical Sciences" that covers gross, histo, and embryo. The focus is head and neck, but they can throw anything on there, so that's why dental students take gross, even if they don't use a lot of that stuff again. Same with med students - what opthalmologist remembers the innervation of peroneus brevis? I'd bet they take the USMLEs and thats it for the leg (I think thats where peroneus brevis is?).
Why do dermatologists need to take gross ?? Psychiatrists, Opthamoligsits, Even the General Physcian ?? I would bet only Orthopods remember the fine details of arm and leg anatomy. It is AMAZING that someone who I assume is intelligent enough to get into medical school cannot see the reason why a doctor of dental surgery would need to know gross anatomy, hmmm! That is sad. I would expect that caliber of questioning from a highschool student or maybe college, but a medical student who is supposed to have deductive reasoning and other faculties needed for diagnosing, etc. Not being able to comprehend why someone who is a doctor and administers systemic drugs and deals with systemic illness would need to know gross anatomy....such silly nonsense, Hey Oldman, I'll answer your question at recess.....Don't bring that argumenative stufff here... You're supposed to be mature.....A doctor.....Act like an adult, Please!!
sorry to have offended the collective. actually i think dental students are quite smart as they actually have the highest scores on the anatomy tests.
i totally understand why you would want to learn about head and neck, i just feel like some of the other material might be overkill. perhaps i also get this feeling because the professors at our school gear the anatomy class towards the medical students and seem to forget at times that dental students also learn this material.
ahh, that explains it. i guess despite the dental students very focused studies, they (the man) still want the students to have some sort of general understanding.
sorry to have come across as immature and acting like i am running around some school yard lot. As far as derms, ophto, etc, medical school seems to be a much more general thing where specialty isn't focused on until later. unfortunately it means we do learn material that is useless for many specialties. i just thought that as you are in dental school and are already focusing on that specialty than the more general stuff could be left at the wayside (or even as a prereq for entering dental school).
actually i think most general practice docs need to know details about everything. as the front door to most patients they have to be able to recognize many signs and symptoms or at least be able to figure who they need to refer the patient to.
Your right about the dental students havingthe high scores. I have been told that we are averging a little bit higher then the med students.
i wonder if it is the pressure from the letter grades you guys get. all the med students i was studying with all went in with the mindset of getting about 40% on their tests to pass the class.
hey, do you feel that the gross anatomy class is really geared for the med students? i always felt like the profs didn't give you guys enough focus.
How many dental schools have gross anatomy that is geared for dental students vs a gross anatomy class offered for medical students in which the dental students have to take?
Unlike most of Med students like yourself who barely made med school and think other professional students are there because they couldn't make med schools, most of dental students chose dental school because we like what we are doing. It's quite obvious to me why dental students are smarter than med students. Besides, you MDs are way oversupplied.
Don't talk like that to Oldman. You don't have a clue about his story or if he "barely" made it into med school. Your whole statement was just childish and erroneous. ^ This coming from a fellow future dentist.
I have no doubts that dentists choose dentistry. The idea that they are "med school" drop outs seems silly to me. I hope you don't feel that way either. My dental classmates are just as smart if not smarter than my med classmates. I hope I did not come across as having the attitude that they are any less. Our entire health field should be like a team. We work together to serve patients. I hope you have a nice day imdaman.
I don't mean to flame you but just because you're a dentist doesn't mean you're better and that oldman is wrong. Dentistry is a good profession but , based on personal experience, I doubt that dentists have more class than doctors. Go to a major city and look around you. There are dentists everywhere clamoring for patients and they have their offices right near barbershops. Also, dentists have to consistently advertise and remain competitive because dental services are more of a commodity than a necessity and is therefore prone to economic fluctuations. In public, you can't deny that MDs gather more respect and recognition, and they seem to make more money and have the privilege of saving lives. And that is why, unfortunately due to my big ego, I don't like hanging around with MDs, and even pre-meds. They should have made dentistry a specialty in medicine.
Actually, dentists are in the business of saving lives too. Dentists often provide the earliest tripwire detection for many common life-threatening conditions such as oral cancers, leukemia, diabetes, AIDS, lead poisoning, and many other diseases with oral manifestations. Let's not forget that the mouth we look at is attached to a body.. It is true that many dental procedures are elective, but then again so are many in medicine, like cosmetic surgery, radial keratotomy for eyesight correction, nevus removal by dermatologists, corn and bunyan treatment by DPMs, etc (all of whom also advertises a lot). And when you have a raging toothache, a visit to the dentist is most assuredly NOT elective and consequently many DDSes are not quite as affected by economic downturns as some would believe (particularly the endodontists). As far as dentists getting less "recognition and respect" than physicians, true or not it is irrelevent to most dental practitioners who find their choice of profession satisfying and rewarding. The age-old dentistry-vs-medicine pissing contest is rather pointless methinks.. The situation at my school: We take many of the same courses with the med students during 1st and 2nd years, though sections of the courses are modified slightly for meds and dents. We take the same full-body Gross Anatomy course as the meds do, except our GU section is not as detailed.
sorry for replying to the original message instead of commenting on the current discussion my school in Canada has dentistry and medicine completely separated in terms of curriculum. The gross anatomy and histology is very superficial (pardon the pun?) for systemic (from the neck down) and most of the focus is on head and neck. I am a lazy guy, so instead of being worried that I was missing out on some important origin/insertion info I was quite happy during first year.
I hope I did not come across as debating "dentistry vs. medicine: which is better" cause that would be in my mind like debating, "doctor vs. doctor" in either case we are doctors who do the same stuff. we do preventative care, see patients, see emergency patients. the only difference i see in the end is that dentists get better pay and better hours. i posed the original question because i was wondering about how schools do the training for at least the anatomy portion of the curriculum. i found our course to be geared towards medical students more than for dental students and thus potentially wasting a dental student's time. i thought at least at the U, the course could be either more evenly split for dental and med or even a course that emphasizes on what dental students need (i thought we went through head and neck a lot faster than some of the extremeties) to learn. but some of the posters here were very helpful with clearing up my ignorance. i came across as suggesting that dentists don't need any gross anatomy (including the head and neck). i never had any question in that regards (especially on head and neck). i just wanted to know why some of the other areas of the anatomy were also studied in as much detail. I do know that the dental students would take an additional head and neck anatomy class later on because frankly we didn't learn that much in gross. Despite the following poster's intial remarks: i PM'd him and his reply was much more informative. he described specialties that I never knew about and general comparisons. he was still offended by my initial comments and subsequent questions, but he was fairly helpful. i'm guessing a lot of you were also offended, so I'll apologize again to you all for doing that. i really meant this question sincerely and i learned something from this. thanks for all your replies.
Hey there Oldman, Rest assured my comments in regard to that whole dentistry-vs-medicine argument wasn't directed at you... Just a general observation. As far as gross anatomy goes, personally I feel my school's approach is pretty balanced for both the meds and dents. The way the course is divided (3 blocks), we only spent 1/3 of the semester looking at musculoskeletal. The rest of the time we look at internal organs and head and neck, which are definitely things a dental student should learn.
Our class was balanced in that way. It's just when they went over clinical correlates it really was for med students only (oh...you dental students don't have to know this stuff...etc).
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