How many patients per year is sufficient?

[Typical Average Student]

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I'm trying to figure out how many patients a dental school sees per year is a sufficient amount to sustain the student body. I'm trying to get the most practice and avoid being a D5 when selecting a school.

I've been trying to look on schools websites and found Pittsburgh saw "More than 55,000 patients.... have been treated in the past 5 years." Not sure if that means 55,000 a year or 11,000 a year...

Hopefully not the latter, but are these good numbers? and what you should be expecting from an average dental school? I recall someone saying their school sees 93,500 a year which is insane so I'm not entirely sure.

 

[Saddleshoes]

I'm not sure the number of patients a clinic sees is a good gauge for determining a students clinical experience.
A clinic can see 55,000 patients in a year but...
...that could include 10,000 emergent problems that do not return for follow up treatment.
...that could include 20,000 patients that can not afford anything beyond basic extraction treatment.
...That could include 10,000 patients that have successfully completed treatment and are on recall.
...that could include 10,000 unreliable patients that have lives that are so chaotic that they cannot get to appointments.
...that could include 5,000 cases that are frankly too complected for a dental student to tackle.
...that could include 2,000 patients that the clinic sees in off site locations that the student gets no credit for treating.
...that could include 1,000 patients that move, die or disappear for the face of the earth.
...which leaves a grand total of 2000 patients for all the under grad dental students to work with.

 

[OhioDMD]

A better question to ask is how many students in a class finish their requirements in four years and what percentage pass their boards the first or second attempt.