Which schools provide the best clinical experience, and will create the best dentists?
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- Thread starter DentayoK
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- Dentist
Dental schools don't create the best dentists, the best students do. As cheesy as that is, it's true. Dental schools teach the barest minimum because there isn't enough time to learn the basics and then the fancy stuff. You have to be really driven, and to seek out special opportunities. For example, only a few students in my class got the chance to place implants, so those people were go-getters. I was a go-getter and did more root canals and perio surgeries than most. Some people started taking the Invisalign course. No dental schools will guarantee that you do all these things.
Dental school rarely produces great dentists. Neither do residencies for the most part. It is a lifetime of learning, making mistakes, making them right, and just plain experience looking at thousands of mouths that create great dentists. And of course some excellent CE along the way. Some of my most talented clinical dentists have come out of schools not known for great clinical education. And vice versa. Any procedure you do not learn in dental school you will have the opportunity to learn further down the road. Go to a school that seems to fit your needs, geographical interest, and with a tuition you feel you can handle.
