Does success in dental school = good future dentist?

[The Dentisto]

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I have no intention of specializing, but I still want to be a good dentist. So far I've been taking it pretty easy and just enjoying life. But I'm worried that since I'm not spending all of my free time studying, by the time I graduate I'm going to know significantly less about dentistry than my peers and I'll be a worse dentist than them. In your experience, do you think this is me being paranoid, or is there some legitimacy to it? Does doing good in dental school actually translate into making you a better dentist?

 

[Lethstang]

Its commonly cited that your c students are who make the most cheddar after school. Also there isnt alot you learn in school that will apply once you start working on patients. All those endless hours of path turn into a biopsy and a referral once you start working. Youre going to improve your composities, your endo, and removeable through CE.....So in my humble opinion no I havent seen extra studying time equal being a better dentist upon graduation though Im sure it cant hurt. One could say that the type of student who spends all that time studying will be the type to become a monster CE junkie and then yes I suppose you could say theres a correlation there but not causation.

 

[Contach]

The people citing this phenomenon are likely the same ones getting the 'C's in the Evidence-Based Dentistry class.

I have 0 real world experience, though I have three points to make:
1) There are plenty of places to learn - the classroom is only one of them. Many extra-curriculars may improve your softer skills.
2) Many CE courses = Dental school, think about it. If you aren't willing to learn in dental school, will the habits and poor studying skills you've accrued throughout dental school help you when you take CE courses?

 

[DrJeff]

In general there is *some* correlation between success in dental school and success in private practice. My personal take on that is that it has much more to do with the drive and motivation to succeed in dental school carrying over to the drive and motivation to succeed in practice.

However, the reality is more often than not what makes one dentist more "successful" than another dentist very often has more to do with how that dentist treats their patients, and often staff too in front of patients, as a person rather that one's clinical ability.

Time and time again, you can see a dentist, who as a colleague you can see and know that they have GREAT clinical skills , but might not be the most financially successful dentist where as a dentist who isn't as clinically proficient but has GREAT patient skills is doing better financially. The reality is that most patients don't know the difference between a sub 20 micro crown margin and say a 50 micron crown margin, or the difference between perfect tertiary anatomy and a random tooth colored "blob" for anatomy. What patients do know is #1 how painful it was or wasn't while in the chair and #2 how they were treated as a person while in the chair. I no longer add "how expensive it was" since over the years I've come to realize that about 99% of all patients will always think on some level that you charge too much for your work, regardless of if you're the most or least expensive clinician in that area

In no means am I saying that one should sacrifice their clinical skills for the sake of their people skills, but one shouldn't also neglect their people skills and how they interact with their patients in this ever changing world. What might of been great a few years ago, may very well be tired and semi irrelevant now, and patients can pick up on that. The "best" dentists are always evolving and re-inventing themselves and their practices as time passes

 

[diasIItema]

I spoke to one of the most successful dentists in the country who graduated from my school years ago (floor of the clinic is named in his honor), and he was an "average" student who played in a band all through dental school. Now he's the future president of one of the major dental organizations and has a CV that'll blow your mind. Point being: class rank and GPA are overrated. The people at the very top of my class are the least social, most type A people I've ever met. Anyone who's ever read Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" will remember the study that cited that over 80% of monetary gain in a career is due to "social engineering" (people skills) moreso than technical expertise. Basically, the most successful dentist is the one who is the best with people, and as has been said above, hones his/her skills after dental school. I was speaking to another professor recently, who teaches one of our harder courses, and he said: "Some people make a 4.0 in this course, but then they get to clinic and don't know their ass from a hole in the ground." So I guess success is relative.

 

[CMistry]

EDIT: This thread is ridiculous...unless you're just trying to use this bad grades=better dentist idea to justify your own GPA.

Agreed. There probably is no strong correlation between grades and success/quality, but I'd sure as hell bet on the 4.0 student over the 2.0 all other things being equal.

 

[lwen5]

I spoke to one of the most successful dentists in the country who graduated from my school years ago (floor of the clinic is named in his honor), and he was an "average" student who played in a band all through dental school. Now he's the future president of one of the major dental organizations and has a CV that'll blow your mind. Point being: class rank and GPA are overrated. The people at the very top of my class are the least social, most type A people I've ever met. Anyone who's ever read Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" will remember the study that cited that over 80% of monetary gain in a career is due to "social engineering" (people skills) moreso than technical expertise. Basically, the most successful dentist is the one who is the best with people, and as has been said above, hones his/her skills after dental school. I was speaking to another professor recently, who teaches one of our harder courses, and he said: "Some people make a 4.0 in this course, but then they get to clinic and don't know their ass from a hole in the ground." So I guess success is relative.

There are plenty of people in this world who are very intelligent (and are at the top academically) and very social. Academic brilliance and social skills are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, it is business tact coupled with hard work that is what makes people very, very successful. People skills are not the panache that everyone makes it out to be. People skills are overrated.

Returning to the original topic,: Why would you not try to learn as much as possible about dentistry when you are paying 250k+ to attend? There are plenty of people in this world who would literally kill to be in a similar position.

 

[sgv]

I think there's a lot involved in becoming a successful dentist. Personality, work ethic, people skills, know how, location, luck, business acumen, debt coming out of school, life choices, etc. Dental school performance is important but it's only one of many contributing factors to success. But no one will know that you graduated at the bottom 10% of your class or at the top 10%, unless you tell them so.

 

[yappy]

Here is a truth about life that is difficult to accept:

A winner is a winner, period.

We're all intrigued the classic protagonist that excels in one area of their life but are deficient in another. It makes us comfortable and maintains a sense of justice in the world. However, I have found that more often than not excellence permeates throughout someones life rather than the protagonist-with-a-flaw theory that we find in fiction. It's not the case that excellent people are perfect; they're just more perfect in most areas than non-excellent people.

I cannot be the only person who notices that the club leader who is so likable is also making A's; and, when their time comes they'll most likely be successful in business as well.

 

[sgv]

Here is a truth about life that is difficult to accept:

A winner is a winner, period.

We're all intrigued the classic protagonist that excels in one area of their life but are deficient in another. It makes us comfortable and maintains a sense of justice in the world. However, I have found that more often than not excellence permeates throughout someones life rather than the protagonist-with-a-flaw theory that we find in fiction. It's not the case that excellent people are perfect; they're just more perfect in most areas than non-excellent people.

I cannot be the only person who notices that the club leader who is so likable is also making A's; and, when their time comes they'll most likely be successful in business as well.

I like to think that we can always change. I would be one of those people who are lacking in more than one area. If you can track and record your performance in any one area, perhaps you can actively improve your inadequacies.

 

[Seahawk]

Here is a truth about life that is difficult to accept:

A winner is a winner, period.

We're all intrigued the classic protagonist that excels in one area of their life but are deficient in another. It makes us comfortable and maintains a sense of justice in the world. However, I have found that more often than not excellence permeates throughout someones life rather than the protagonist-with-a-flaw theory that we find in fiction. It's not the case that excellent people are perfect; they're just more perfect in most areas than non-excellent people.

I cannot be the only person who notices that the club leader who is so likable is also making A's; and, when their time comes they'll most likely be successful in business as well.

Sure, there will always be that group of people who win at everything...but no. I know people at the top of the class grade wise who are not incredibly likable and who aren't involved in stuff. I know people who make A's who can be outperformed clinically by people who make C's. Some of these people can make an make A on a test but can't find the front door of the building, is what a faculty once told me.

But the topic at hand is tricky, how do we gauge success? The guy who runs a big chain of over treating offices and pulls down big bucks? Or the guy who runs a good ol' John Smith DDS office on the corner and works one chair at a time with a high overhead doing everything to make the patient happy and doing good work?

 

[diasIItema]

People skills are not the panache that everyone makes it out to be. People skills are overrated.

"Research done a few years ago under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching uncovered a most important and significant fact - a fact later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. These investigations revealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering - to personality and the ability to lead people." - Dale Carnegie
(1936)

Though a dated citation, the current boom in research on emotional intelligence is predicated upon such claims. No one said academic brilliance and social tact are mutually exclusive. What some here have cited is the observation that individuals in many of our classes who are of premier rank are lacking in said social tact. The OP's original question of concern was does doing well in dental school correlate with being a good dentist, and vice versa?

I believe the anecdotal evidence reveals that, for general practitioners, success isn't really correlated strongly with GPA/class rank."It's business tact combined with hard work that make people very, very successful."Not necessarily (though I would consider business tact to fall under the people skills umbrella). Successful professionals, especially professionals in leadership positions, tend to have strong connections to other professionals/colleagues, and that principally boils down to ... people skills.GPA/class rank are overrated for general practitioners.

The general public isn't going to know the difference between excellent and competent dentistry. They'll notice a dentist's social competence far more than clinical expertise, which all dentists develop with time; a patient's perception of treatment is more telling than the actual treatment performed.

To the OP, most dentists don't hone skills till after dental school and most of the didactic material we learn (i.e. basic sciences) isn't going to be very pertinent on a daily basis. My advice would be to build as many social connections as possible among peers and colleagues and make sure that you are COMPETENT in all phases of clinical dentistry that you aim to practice. Your ability to list a bunch of pathological minutia relative to your peers isn't going to be a strong delineation in the trajectory of your careers.