Educational pathways

[Eyesontheprizedoc]

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Hello Dental forum!
I feel that dental school is a more effective way of going into a medical specialty in comparison to medical school. In dental school, you are given a complete overview of the body, but you get started early in becoming proficient in your specific field (teeth of course). In medical school, you obviously go into great depth and detail regarding the entire body, but I almost feel that you become someone who is more or else a “jack of all trades, master of none,” that is until they go to residency to specialize for at least another 3 years. I just feel that this is almost a waste of time. Obviously in the dental field you can go on to specialize further in a residency, but when you graduate you already are somewhat efficient compared to a med school graduate in my opinion. Do you also feel that this is a more effective and efficient way to specialize? What are the pros and cons? I realize this will obviously be biased since this is a dental page, but imagine the persecution I would get on the medical page! Disclaimer: I’m not a medical or dental student! Just trying to hear some good opinions.

 

[Eyesontheprizedoc]

No opinions on this???? Really?? I’m surprised...

 

[321931]

Ok...I guess I'll bite.

I think we should just get rid of the undergrad 4 year public university system.

Declare major in high school, take the test to see if you get in- go straight to med school and then specialize. The first two years of most graduate schools tend to be a review of physiology, chemistry, biology. Undergrad is honestly just worthless. Learning about plants, sociology, pre-calculus is just a waste of time when you are going to be a Doctor. Re-reviewing stuff in graduate school is also a waste of time. Learn it once on the go and utilize it as you graduate.

 

[Eyesontheprizedoc]

I agree. So much of undergrad could be cut out. I doubt it ever will be but.... we can dream huh?

 

[questionasker1071]

I think they’re two totally different disciplines. The most efficient would be a cna because they don’t even go into much school or need a degree. Or a nurse because the only do undergrad.

But yes. Dentists finish school faster since they don’t have as long of residencies or need one at all.

 

[2TH MVR]

Medicine and dentistry are two different things. Medicine is broader in it's education with more material and dentistry is more specific. The other issue the OP is not addressing is that EXPERIENCE is also very important. Experience takes time. Medicine is about life and death situations. Dentistry for the most part ... is not.

Re: skipping undergrad. I agree that undergrad probably adds very little to a dentist's future, but the title of DOCTOR means that a person went to school for certain number of years. Undergrad plus post-grad.

 

[ab117]

Medicine and dentistry are two different things. Medicine is broader in it's education with more material and dentistry is more specific. The other issue the OP is not addressing is that EXPERIENCE is also very important. Experience takes time. Medicine is about life and death situations. Dentistry for the most part ... is not.

Re: skipping undergrad. I agree that undergrad probably adds very little to a dentist's future, but the title of DOCTOR means that a person went to school for certain number of years. Undergrad plus post-grad.

This isn't quite true, there are accelerated programs, people skip years, test out of classes (I think we should allow this to happen a lot more than we currently do), etc. The title of Doctor should be affirming one has at least a certain level of knowledge and the ability to apply it, not just the amount of time it took to get there. I think @Rainee is right that we should be able to get people to that level of knowledge and ability in less time than we currently do. I think that philosophically there is a strong argument for a well-rounded education that backs our current system, but practically I also feel like ~30-40% of my college courses repeated crap I learned in high school without really expounding on it or taught me the same stuff I have learned/will learn in dental school but not as well or in less detail. Am I glad I know some of it? Sure. Will it all make me a better person or a better dentist? Maybe, but probably not.

you become someone who is more or else a “jack of all trades, master of none,”

I disagree with this axiom being applied to a medical student/physician, rather they are or will be "master" of the human body, medicine itself is a highly specific subset of human knowledge. We require years of education and practice because the cost of not being enough of a master is literally people dying. Mouth problems are important but significantly less likely to kill someone, so you could look at dental school as a way to leapfrog to becoming an even more specialized "master" of a portion of the human body with comparatively little mastery of the rest of it, requiring a higher financial investment up front traded for the higher investment of time for medicine.

Whether the value of the ability to practice without 3+ years in residency is equal to $200,000-plus-many-years-of-interest is still currently hotly debated among dentists, among physicians, and between dentists and physicians, so the best anyone can say about one path being more "effective" or "efficient" than the other is a big, resounding it depends.

 

[2TH MVR]

Medicine and dentistry are two different things. Medicine is broader in it's education with more material and dentistry is more specific. The other issue the OP is not addressing is that EXPERIENCE is also very important. Experience takes time.

This isn't quite true, there are accelerated programs, people skip years, test out of classes (I think we should allow this to happen a lot more than we currently do), etc. The title of Doctor should be affirming one has at least a certain level of knowledge and the ability to apply it, not just the amount of time it took to get there. I think @Rainee is right that we should be able to get people to that level of knowledge and ability in less time than we currently do. I think that philosophically there is a strong argument for a well-rounded education that backs our current system, but practically I also feel like ~30-40% of my college courses repeated crap I learned in high school without really expounding on it or taught me the same stuff I have learned/will learn in dental school but not as well or in less detail. Am I glad I know some of it? Sure. Will it all make me a better person or a better dentist? Maybe, but probably not.

If I'm not mistaken .... you have no real world experience? You are not a Dr. yet. Of course ... you will have these views since anything to speed up the process to being a Dr. is an advantage to you. But in the real world .... being a Dr. means more than rehashing dental school classes. Knowledge with experience makes a good Dr. Medical Drs. spend more time in residency to gain more experience. Experience is what separates the average Drs from the better drs. You will realize this when you graduate.

As for the title of Doctor. I stand by my views. If anything ... the title of Dr. has been minimized from what the title once meant.

 

[ab117]

If I'm not mistaken .... you have no real world experience? You are not a Dr. yet. Of course ... you will have these views since anything to speed up the process to being a Dr. is an advantage to you. But in the real world .... being a Dr. means more than rehashing dental school classes. Knowledge with experience makes a good Dr. Medical Drs. spend more time in residency to gain more experience. Experience is what separates the average Drs from the better drs. You will realize this when you graduate.

As for the title of Doctor. I stand by my views. If anything ... the title of Dr. has been minimized from what the title once meant.

You're right, I 100% agree with you about experience. What I'm kind of trying to say though is that our current system keeps people with a lot of potential on the "theoretical" "book-learning" side of things for a reeeeeally long time before they get to do very much on the application-of-knowledge and gaining-of-experience side, where they could probably excel without having done a lot of the busy work they did before that. Some of the first part helps us transition into the second part, but a good portion of it does not. For example, I fulfilled several undergrad degree requirements with online courses that were almost laughably easy, all I had to do was write a handful of papers that weren't any more difficult than what I'd done in high-school. It could potentially be argued that I was still getting practice and learning some stuff just by writing the papers, but I paid ~$700 each for each of these classes, never read from a reading assignment, or attended a lecture, or even heard anything besides some generic feedback from the "professor" and easily got A's with very little effort. They didn't contribute much to my current knowledge base, but they did put ~3 semesters between me and accomplishing my actual goal of going to dental school and several thousand dollars into the pockets of a whole bunch of administrators in debatably-necessary positions.

Students gain an MD or DDS at the end of school start being called Doctor right away, which is why I argue that the title just affirms that you completed a program and should have a base level of relatively advanced knowledge, plus some amount of experience, as agreed upon by accreditors. But just like you said, it's not until after years of residency or practice that the knowledge and experience together make someone a good, respected Doctor. I just think we could probably do a better job of streamlining amassing the knowledge that's actually necessary before one can start combining it with experience by cutting a significant amount of fluff out of the current university system.