What you said about the latin thing sounded right...so I looked it up... I couldn't find anything on the net except another thread in these forums a while back...Here's the post that was interesting:
JKDMed argued that the difference between DDS and DMD is in their latin spelling on the diploma. His argument, to make an analogy, is similar to the differences between a BA and AB, where the BA stands for Bachelor of Arts, and the AB stands for "Artium Baccalaureus". I disagree with his reasoning.
The latin translation of Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) is "Dentiste Medicinae Doctor", hence the DMD designation. The latin translation of Doctor of Dental Surgery is "Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris" or C.D.D if going by latin abbreviation. Ergo DMD is not the latin abbreviation for the Doctor of Dental Surgery degree.
The origin of the two different dental degrees originate in the 19th century. At the time, all dental schools conferred the Doctor of Dental Surgery degree (medicine and surgery were seperate discipline at the time). Harvard, which had a dental school awarded the DDS degree. However, since Harvard had a tradition of naming their degrees in latin, Harvard dental graduates held the C.D.D. initial in lieu of the DDS. Harvard decided to rename their degree "Dentiste Medicinae Doctor", to help their graduates while preserving their tradition of latin abbreviation. So the DMD is the latin abbreviation for Doctor of Dental Medicine (instead of DDM). This differ from JKDMed's arguement in that he argued that DMD was the latin abbreviation for the DDS. There was an actual name change in the degree which he failed to mention.
At the turn of the century, there were 57 dental schools in the United States, but only Harvard and Oregon awarded the DMD degree. As of 1989, 23 of 66 US Dental Schools and about half of Canadian Dental Schools confer the Dentiste Medicinae Doctor degree.
