good gpr/aegd programs...

[Lin709]

hey guys... i'm considering a GPR or AEGD program after dental school, and i have begun research on various programs. however, there are sooo many of them out there... and going onto their website doesnt help too much because they pretty much list the same objectives, etc. Does anyone have any insight on any of the GPR/AEGD programs out there, and can give me specifics about what they have to offer (i.e. which ones concentrate on certain specialties and which ones give you experience in all types of dentistry)? Thanks!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Smilemaker100]

hey guys... i'm considering a GPR or AEGD program after dental school, and i have begun research on various programs. however, there are sooo many of them out there... and going onto their website doesnt help too much because they pretty much list the same objectives, etc. Does anyone have any insight on any of the GPR/AEGD programs out there, and can give me specifics about what they have to offer (i.e. which ones concentrate on certain specialties and which ones give you experience in all types of dentistry)? Thanks!!

Hi Lin709,

I think there are several threads in this forum which address this issue (do a search for GPR dentistry). If you want to find out about some of the things I have said in reference to my GPR program, check out the thread entitled, "My life as a GPR resident".

I have other remarks/insights to make about my GPR program as I am going into my fourth month . One thing I can say for sure...the worse thing about dentistry (for me at least) was my dental school experience 🙁 ...it seems to be a universal consensus among some of my other collegues that I have kept in touch with. I have some friends who are presently in their last year of dental school and I keep trying to encourage them by telling them that once dental school is over , the real fun begins 😉 !

About 60% of my time is spent doing general dentistry in the dental clinic and the rest of the time is spent on rotation. I am "on call" once a week- which is pretty decent. Our dental clinic offers more or less all services, however, we don't do much pedodontics (darn, I miss those kids!!!! 🙁 ) or orthodontics. Most of the patients which the residents treat are state insured so you don't get a chance to do much cosmetic dentistry (however I was lucky to land one case). I do a lot of restorative work (fillings) as well as prosthodontics (crowns, partial and complete dentures). I haven't done many endodontics cases (will start two cases soon) but I guess I'll be getting more cases sooner or later. One thing which I didn't expect, and actually am quite pleased with, is that in our program we have a fair share of surgery. Since we don't have an oral surgery program at our hospital, the GPR residents get to do quite a lot of surgery. We have a two day IV training course and get to do some IV sedation for some oral surgery cases. There are also several weeks dispersed over the course of the year in which we do full mouth dental rehabilitation and extractions under general anesthesia. I don't want to become an oral surgeon, however I do want to get more efficient at my surgical skills and feel so thankful that I am getting to do that in my residency.

I think another aspect which is important to consider is the availability of the attendings. I am quite pleased to say that the supervision is rather excellent at our program. There is always at least one attending available. The attendings in our program actually have their own patients which they treat in a designated area of the clinic so if there is ever an emergency, there is someone on hand. We also have a few specialists (periodontist and endodontist) who occasionally serve as attendings.

We have a dental laboratory with two dental technicians. One tech does mostly removable prostho while the other tech does fixed prostho. We don't do much lab work other than pouring our study models, fabricating custom trays and wax rims etc(for removable prostho). However, I have two big cases in which I may have to do full mouth diagnostic wax ups...if the treatment plan is approved.

There are various rotations which you will do when you are enrolled in a GPR program...among them: anesthesia, internal medicine and emergency medicine. I haven't done all the rotations yet but I had an anesthesia rotation for about two weeks. Sadly , because of a nasty bug, I had to miss a few days of it. In any case, I have learned that when you are on rotation, the doctors or nurses won't give much importance to you when you say you're a dental resident unless you seem really interested and pursue them to a certain degree. For example, for some of the cases during my anesthesia rotation, I sat next to the nurse anesthesiologist and we talked at length on the monitoring of vital signs...EKGs, pulse oximetry, capnography and even EEGs ( which I saw used once). You also follow some of the anesthesiologists around in order to get familiar with the medications employed for the induction and maintenance of anesthesia. Some of the surgeons will gladly explain the surgical procedures to you if they see that you are interested. I also got to do a few intubations ( not all successful but at least I learned).
The rotation is helpful in that when you do your cases in the OR, you will be more familiar with the vital sign monitoring , induction and maintenance of anesthesia.

Another aspect which is revelant in a GPR program is that of the "on calls" which is not a part of the AEGD program. I must honestly admit, that I wasn't too happy at the beginning when I had some nights in which I got at most 2 to 3 hours of sleep. But as time went on, you realize how much your work is appreciated on these "on calls" because they are of a traumatic nature. Like last night, there was this 12 year old girl who was involved in a car accident. She had a laceration/avulsion in her upper eyelid which extended to the bridge of the nose. I had never come across such a messy looking trauma around the eye till that point. It was rather delicate. In any case, I was unsure about how to suture it up as I had little experience with lacs so implicated in the eye region and for the first time, I had an oral surgery resident come take a look for this laceration. The only other time I made an oral surgery resident come in was when I came across a jaw fracture case. Last night, the poor oral surgery guy had to get up at 4am (we started suturing at 1130 and were done a little after 1am) but he was so nice about it and excellent on the job. In any case, we both worked together very nicely. It took us around 2 hours to do a nice job. The mother, who was also involved in the car accident, was practically crying tears of joy and kept talking about what a nice job we did 😀 and the patient was so adorable and calm that it was pleasant to do the suturing. It was a very rewarding experience...even though I was still having violent coughs from my bronchitis , feeling kind of miserable 🙁 (those damn antibiotics were doing more harm than good-a doc told me to stop them which I did!!!) , tired as hell and it was my second "on call" in 4 days as I had missed one last week as a result of this nasty flu. Usually, I am on call once a week.

Other remarks about the "on calls". For the most part, you are going to be all on your own. You will have to assess the situation and see if any other services (such as oral surgery) will be required and if the patient needs to be admitted to the hospital. Most of the "on calls" are actually just simple straight forward lacerations. Sometimes ( especially on weekends according to my experience) you get calls from these "druggies"...that is these patients who call the hospital to get a hold of a resident and attempt to get you to prescribe narcotic medications over the phone ( which of course you can't do). They aren't always patients from your dental department or even your vicinity! I had one experience in which a person called from the state of Massachussets ( I am in Hartford, Connecticut) asking for narcotic pain killers! You can usually detect them right away since they seem more familiar than a layman should be for all the generic/brand names of the narcotic drugs and their stories don't seem to make sense.

In our program, we have ongoing lectures on subjects such as treatment planning and occlusion. We had two months worth of oral surgery lectures at the beginning of the program. We also had to pass an ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) course and a physical diagnosis course...all interesting stuff.

Even though I am living quite far from my native city of Montreal, I don't miss it as much as I used to because I am having a lot of fun at this program. The residents get along well , the attendings are nice and the support staff
( assistants, hygienists and secretaries) are not only nice but humorous and very good on the job. Now if I can only find myself a clinic like this when I leave! Don't know if I will stick around here (in the US) unless I get hitched to some American dude ( which most likely won' t happen 🙄 ) so I'll be heading back to the Great White North...somewhere like Ottawa? Or stay in the US ( Boston?)? Anyhow, I think I will definitely miss this place when I leave. 🙁

Good luck with your residency applications and hope you land in a great place like I have.

 

[Gutta Percha]

Please explain the benefit of a residency. I don't quite understand why one would subject themselves to being treated poorly for little money. A recent graduate could work at a mill or even better a community health center and get a wide variety of experience with endo, surgery and pedo which I think most schools are lacking, but still be paid a decent salary. I don't know any general dentist who will get an emergency call for a jaw fracture or severe facial laceration. If they did then it would be a quick referal to the ER. Residency's will tell you they teach you how to handle medically compromised individuals, but if you are in private practice you will rarely treat one of those patients since you know it is beter to refer. Having been in a residency I understand that most are a waste of time. Sorry for the harsh criticism--just trying to help out the future dds.

 

[Smilemaker100]

Please explain the benefit of a residency. I don't quite understand why one would subject themselves to being treated poorly for little money. A recent graduate could work at a mill or even better a community health center and get a wide variety of experience with endo, surgery and pedo which I think most schools are lacking, but still be paid a decent salary. I don't know any general dentist who will get an emergency call for a jaw fracture or severe facial laceration. If they did then it would be a quick referal to the ER. Residency's will tell you they teach you how to handle medically compromised individuals, but if you are in private practice you will rarely treat one of those patients since you know it is beter to refer. Having been in a residency I understand that most are a waste of time. Sorry for the harsh criticism--just trying to help out the future dds.

Being treated poorly for little money????? Excuse me? Who told you that residents were being badly treated? That hasn't been my experience. I don't know where you did your GPR program but it sounds like you were miserable.

I think that GPRs/AEGDs should actually be made COMPULSORY for all dental students as it is for medical residents. Honestly, when you graduate, you lack the experience to handle many things. It is true that with time and experience, you can learn how to handle more situations, however, residencies are sort of like an "accelerated learning program" as you get exposed to a variety of situations.

I don't even mind doing more than one year of a residency. My aim in my life right now, at least careerwise, is not to earn big $$$ but is to get as much exposure as I can before I throw myself "to the sharks" ( that is...in the labour market...working as an associate at at a private practice). For once you are in private practice, patients expect a lot more out of you. At least when you are doing a residency, you can consult and get help when you feel you need it and the patients are understanding because they know you are a resident and are still in the training process- you can't really do the same when in private practice.

I enjoy the learning process that a residency program has to offer. While it is true that in private practice I won't be dealing with major jaw fractures and suturing up lacerations, I don't mind doing it for the time being and find that the patients feel so appreciative towards me which I also appreciate.

As for dealing with medically immunocompromised patients, I find it most fascinating and even if I don't encounter many of them when I am in private practice at least (unlike what you said) I will know how to handle the case and WOULD NOT refer because hopefully the training I had would have taught me how to manage the case adequately.

So dear Lin709, I still strongly encourage you to pursue your interest in doing a residency program. Remember, the more you learn and experience before going into private practice, the more your future patients will benefit.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Does anyone have any insight on any of the GPR/AEGD programs out there, and can give me specifics about what they have to offer (i.e. which ones concentrate on certain specialties and which ones give you experience in all types of dentistry)? Thanks!!

Because there are so many GPR/AEGD programs out there (literally hundreds), it is sometimes best to BEGIN to narrow down your choices simply based on what part of the country you would like to live in, either during your training or after your training. Virtually every part of the country will have programs that are similar (ie, there will be tremendously strong clinical programs in the New England area, and there will be similar programs in the southwest area of the US).

At least that will give you *some* semblance of a starting point. I think doing it any other way leaves you weeding through 700+ programs.

 

[omaralt]

how much do GPR residencies normally pay??

 

[trypmo]

Another big question: can you continue loan deferral throughout a residency? If not, your entire paycheck's going to the bank, and even if so, there's another X years of interest accruing on at least $100k+, which just adds up too dang quickly. In theory, I'd love to do a residency, but it just seems completely financially infeasible for me (even with loan deferrals -- I'm just gettin' too old to still be living on ramen noodles et al.).

 

[Smooth Operater]

Hello Smilemaker100! How difficult is it for a Canadian to enroll in GPR/AEGD residence in US?

 

[north2southOMFS]

Oh my gosh smilemaker, those are like the longest posts i have ever seen in my entire life.

 

[Smilemaker100]

Oh my gosh smilemaker, those are like the longest posts i have ever seen in my entire life.

I am quite a fast typer so it doesn't take me that long to write a lot. I don't mean to brag but I type at a secretary's pace ( or quicker). I took a typing course when I was 14 which taught me how to type fast without looking at the keys. When I type I don't look at the letters - I do it blindly- almost like reading Braille I suppose. I am a very verbal person and I have so many different thoughts racing in my mind that it's hard for me to even type to catch up with my thoughts!!!! I typed this past paragraph in about one minute...just to give you an idea of my speed 😀

 

[Smilemaker100]

smilemaker must be a chick..

That's right , dude- I am a chick ( or a "dudette" as one of my male friends called me once 😉 ) I am a writer...I keep journals. I love writing.

 

[Gutta Percha]

You are correct, I was miserable in my residency from the standpoint that "my boss" treated all the residents like children instead of colleagues. The mandatory education sessions were worthless due to the topics discussed, they were 2nd year topics in my dental school. I did get some exposure with medically compromised pts., but had more exposure in dental school. But I have to say that when pts. come in and are on plavix or coumadin and need an ext. on a highly mobile tooth I refer and would hope most GP's would even if they did do a residency (just an example).

If you want to gain more exposure in the field, get speed, make good money, and do good for people, then go work for the IHS or a community health center for 2 years. I keep stressing this b/c its probably the only time in your career when you feel like you can really help people who need dental care. After an experience like that then you can get your own practice and have the dental knowledge to treat pts. right.

 

[Smilemaker100]

Hello Smilemaker100! How difficult is it for a Canadian to enroll in GPR/AEGD residence in US?

I think it is easier to get admitted to a US residency program as oppose to a Canadian one because of the fact that the population in Canada is about 35 million and the US population is about 10xs more (around 300 million I believe) so there are more spots to fill. However, I wouldn't say that you are guaranteed to get into the number one program you want through the MATCH process but even if you don't , there are always places that have unfilled position. The MATCH process is unique to the US except for McGill University's residency program which also uses the MATCH.

I didn't apply to any Canadian residency programs because I wanted a little "adventure" and wanted to go to the US to taste a little bit of independence. I also know many people at the University of Montreal and McGill University dentistry faculties and wanted to meet new faces. A lot of my Canadian collegues also chose to do a residency in the US (most went to the state of New York).

Canada in general, is very competitive- not only for the residency programs but even getting admitted to dental and medical school in Canada is a lot more difficult than in the US. In order to be considered admisssion to most dental schools in Canada, you require a 3.5GPA or more and most medical schools in Canada require at least something like a 3.8 GPA but a lot of people who are admitted have a straight 4.0 GPA. US dental schools are not as difficult to get into- the minimum GPA is lower than it is in Canada. If you have $$$$ in the US, you can get into university a lot more easier whereas in Canada it isn't a question of money but grades.

Anyhow, Smooth Operater, hope that helps.

 

[Smilemaker100]

You are correct, I was miserable in my residency from the standpoint that "my boss" treated all the residents like children instead of colleagues. The mandatory education sessions were worthless due to the topics discussed, they were 2nd year topics in my dental school. I did get some exposure with medically compromised pts., but had more exposure in dental school. But I have to say that when pts. come in and are on plavix or coumadin and need an ext. on a highly mobile tooth I refer and would hope most GP's would even if they did do a residency (just an example).

If you want to gain more exposure in the field, get speed, make good money, and do good for people, then go work for the IHS or a community health center for 2 years. I keep stressing this b/c its probably the only time in your career when you feel like you can really help people who need dental care. After an experience like that then you can get your own practice and have the dental knowledge to treat pts. right.

I am sorry to hear that you had a bad residency experience. I am glad to say that not only I but a lot of the people I graduated from dental school with are quite pleased with their residency program so far. It seems like the universal consensus is that dental school was the worst experience in our dental careers. Everyone says that they really are happy that their superiors in their residency programs treat them respectfully as collegues.

 

[Smilemaker100]

Another big question: can you continue loan deferral throughout a residency? If not, your entire paycheck's going to the bank, and even if so, there's another X years of interest accruing on at least $100k+, which just adds up too dang quickly. In theory, I'd love to do a residency, but it just seems completely financially infeasible for me (even with loan deferrals -- I'm just gettin' too old to still be living on ramen noodles et al.).

I don't know about the US but I am from Canada and my loans have been deferred while I am doing a residency program since it is considered to be a postgraduate education. I think that some of the US collegues in my residency program have their loans deferred...I am not sure as I don't like asking questions of that nature to people even if they are my friends.

 

[dort-ort]

That's right , dude- I am a chick ( or a "dudette" as one of my male friends called me once 😉 ) I am a writer...I keep journals. I love writing.

Hey smilemaker100. You sound very knowledgeable and you seem like a swell girl. Would you marry me?

 

[dentalstudent]

I am currently doing a GPR program and can comment on it. You have to remember that once you graduate from dental school, you just only have the basic skills and knowledge to get by. That's right! Only the basics... It doesn't matter whether you were the best student in clinic because you are only exposed to a limited amount of diverse patients in a school environment. I think a GPR is a good transition period where you can make your own treatment plan without having any faculty helping you and start thinking like a doctor. Although once you graduate you do have the dr. degree, you are always learning new things every day.

 

[Smilemaker100]

I am currently doing a GPR program and can comment on it. You have to remember that once you graduate from dental school, you just only have the basic skills and knowledge to get by. That's right! Only the basics... It doesn't matter whether you were the best student in clinic because you are only exposed to a limited amount of diverse patients in a school environment. I think a GPR is a good transition period where you can make your own treatment plan without having any faculty helping you and start thinking like a doctor. Although once you graduate you do have the dr. degree, you are always learning new things every day.

Amen. 🙂

 

[Smilemaker100]

Hey smilemaker100. You sound very knowledgeable and you seem like a swell girl. Would you marry me?

Thanks, for the compliment dort-ort. Marry me? Got a ring and date ? 😉