importance of sim labs

[MaChVa]

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For anyone who is currently in dental school or has graduated already, could you please tell me how important the quality of a school's sim labs are while in dental school? Some schools have large, up-to-date sim labs and others have very small, older sim labs. When I visit a school like Maryland and see their brand new state of the art sim labs and facilities, it is enticing to want to go there for school. However, after thinking about it...should this factor really come into consideration at all when deciding which school to attend? How much are these sim labs really used during the first two years of school?

 

[lotexigeus]

For anyone who is currently in dental school or has graduated already, could you please tell me how important the quality of a school's sim labs are while in dental school? Some schools have large, up-to-date sim labs and others have very small, older sim labs. When I visit a school like Maryland and see their brand new state of the art sim labs and facilities, it is enticing to want to go there for school. However, after thinking about it...should this factor really come into consideration at all when deciding which school to attend? How much are these sim labs really used during the first two years of school?

I'm a D1 at UT Memphis.

Memphis has 40 sim stations. We used them for the first month or so. Now they just sit there waiting for the next bunch of D1s to come in. We may use them for crown preps later? i dunno

Depends on the school probably, but we don't get much use out of ours.

 

[apaul]

2nd year we use them monday and wednesday afternoons for remo, tuesday mornings and thursday afternoons for fixed, each session for around 4 hours

1st year we used them quite a bit for operative so yeah we use them a lot but i wouldnt base my whole decision on where to go on that.

 

[Dent2011]

About Maryland's Sim labs: I would say they are a pretty great educational tool. We have 130 of them which is enough for every student. It's not just a head on a rod either, it's an entire unit. It's also the same unit that you'll find in clinic with the works (water/air/rheostat). Practicing on them definitely makes you more comfortable in clinic in addition to making sure you're fulcruming right, having good posture, etc. We also have weekend and night access to the sim labs so you can come in and practice any time you like—pretty convenient.
Tons of schools without simulation labs will argue that you don't need them. Reality is, it would be tough to find a school undergoing renovations and not planning to have simulation labs (Schools around the world come in to check out our labs). Of course, back in the day, many dentists first learned to drill on a simple table top—but the face of dentistry is changing and technology has developed to reflect these improvements. Trust me, no school would just dump money into a worthless lab.
As a preclinical student, you will not be able to do inoperable procedures on patients until you've learned out to give anesthesia, etc, which does not occur until your second year (for most schools). In the meantime, I'd hope that you'd have something to practice on (third and fourth years come in all the time to practice before boards/patients) I guess all I can really say is that I'm glad I have these resources and would feel like I'm missing out w/o them.

 

[Sandman8]

I agree with Dent 2011. Our sim lab is really similar (one unit for every student). As a D1 we're in there 2 -2.5 days a week and every time we're not in there, the D2s are. The sim lab takes a bit of the fear and uncertainty out of clinic. Obviously, working on patients is a whole different story when compared to working on a manechin, but it definitely helps. I personally couldn't imagine school without it.

 

[GunnerDMD617]

.

 

[djeffreyt]

Your school should probably have a sim lab, but how nice of one it is isn't important. Even if the school didn't have a sim lab and you just prepped on a typodont plastic mouth at the end of a stick, you'd still learn, you'd just have to learn certain ergonomic, lip retraction, suction, etc things once in clinic. It's not that big of a learning curve, so it's not that big of a deal.

So, as far as I'm concerned, nice sim labs are fun to look at but make little difference. The difference is made in the faculty you have and the ratio of faculty you have. I nice simulator is useless if you can't get any faculty to come over to check your work or give you advice, or if the faculty are rude and berating and don't give you help but just beat you down.

 

[charlestweed]

So, as far as I'm concerned, nice sim labs are fun to look at but make little difference. The difference is made in the faculty you have and the ratio of faculty you have. I nice simulator is useless if you can't get any faculty to come over to check your work or give you advice, or if the faculty are rude and berating and don't give you help but just beat you down.

I agree. In my opinion, instead of wasting the money on the sim lab, the school should either reduce the tuition or use that money to hire more clinical instructors.

 

[doc toothache]

State of the art sim labs certainly are enticing but it is unlikely that you will cut a better prep in a 30K/unit sim lab than in a 3K. While prepping on a live model in a wet environment is no doubt more challenging we need to learn to walk before we can run so having a dental assistant is a little pointless for the pre clinical time. Concentrate on the clinical environment of the ds.

 

[gryffindor]

Not important. I'm not even sure what a sim lab is, but from your descriptions I think we might have had like 4 of these units we used maybe twice in our preclinical education. It wasn't hard to transition from the head on a stick to clinic. If anything, I think prepping on the head on a stick was harder than prepping on your average patient. I agree that the uber cool technology isn't worth the extra high tuition.

 

[HuyetKiem]

For anyone who is currently in dental school or has graduated already, could you please tell me how important the quality of a school's sim labs are while in dental school? Some schools have large, up-to-date sim labs and others have very small, older sim labs. When I visit a school like Maryland and see their brand new state of the art sim labs and facilities, it is enticing to want to go there for school. However, after thinking about it...should this factor really come into consideration at all when deciding which school to attend? How much are these sim labs really used during the first two years of school?

Which one are you talking about ?

complete unit with IR sensors, cameras, motion detectors

or

 

[lotexigeus]

Which one are you talking about ?

http://dental.case.edu/admissions/dmd/images/dentsim5full.jpg[IMG]
complete unit with IR sensors, cameras, motion detectors

or

[IMG]http://dental.case.edu/admissions/dmd/images/simclinic2full.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

i would assume he/she is talking about a dentsim (first pic)

 

[youngmc27]

Wish we had the first one that is sweet. Truly we live in the sim lab this semester but whatever you have will teach you what you need to know.

 

[armorshell]

The handpiece on the DentSim unit looks about the size of a softball bat. Accurate simulation?

 

[lotexigeus]

The handpiece on the DentSim unit looks about the size of a softball bat. Accurate simulation?

very awkward and heavy, but when you're a fresh student you don't know the difference.

Once we got our real handpieces, we haven't stepped foot back into the dentsim lab.

 

[aphistis]

A nice simulator is useless if you can't get any faculty to come over to check your work or give you advice, or if the faculty are rude and berating and don't give you help but just beat you down.

I agree. In my opinion, instead of wasting the money on the sim lab, the school should either reduce the tuition or use that money to hire more clinical instructors.

State of the art sim labs certainly are enticing but it is unlikely that you will cut a better prep in a 30K/unit sim lab than in a 3K. While prepping on a live model in a wet environment is no doubt more challenging we need to learn to walk before we can run so having a dental assistant is a little pointless for the pre clinical time. Concentrate on the clinical environment of the ds.

It wasn't hard to transition from the head on a stick to clinic. If anything, I think prepping on the head on a stick was harder than prepping on your average patient. I agree that the uber cool technology isn't worth the extra high tuition.

Agree with all of the above. The primary benefit of a simlab is the glossy photography you put in slick-looking school brochures, to help convince undergrads that they should pick your school and its $40,000 annual tuition.

 

[lotexigeus]

Agree with all of the above. The primary benefit of a simlab is the glossy photography you put in slick-looking school brochures, to help convince undergrads that they should pick your school and its $40,000 annual tuition.

word, UTMemphis pretty much just uses theirs as a recruitment tool.

 

[ought2sleep]

I was extremely dissapointed in Dentsim. We have 25 units at our school and first semester we did rotations through the lab to learn basic technique and preps. I didn't realize how awful it really was until we got to the mannequin lab with normal size/weight handpieces and I had 1000x more control. Dentsim is EXTREMELY sensitive so a lot of the times it will think you cut something on a tooth that you haven't even touched. I'm sure it was somewhat helpful, but I don't think it is anything that can't be learned by watching a couple tooth cutting videos. THe mannequin lab on the other hand is ABSOLTELY necessary.

 

[CoachJawbone]

We have 12 Dentsim rotations before we start preclinical labs, which starts soon. like everyone's been saying, that baseball bat is really heavy. I too have been quasi happy with the course. I get excited every time I'm about to enter, then that quickly dies once the pc starts telling you some error or the other. Now it's Pass fail for us, and the requirements to pass are extremely easy. so it really like a play session. for 1st years, this is the only drill we see until mid feb of 1st year, so I suppose it's a nice way of introducing us. Also, it's not very consistent rotations, I.e. for my group, we may not have a rotation for a month, then have two in one week😱 def not building the "skills" we should be learning as I forget about everyone from dentsim lecture. anyway, pt is, preclinical is where its at and I dentsim is there to help. how much is left for you to determine. I'm def looking forward to starting preclinic soon and picking up that lighter hand piece soon... I'm sure I'll withdraw that last statement soon enough.

 

[HuyetKiem]

I'm a huge fan of DentSim lab 👍👍. I'd spent most of my free time first year there practicing and practicing... right hand and left hand. It was forcing me to sit properly and use indirect vision when preping. It was a big help when entering second year preclinic and clinic later on. Man.. those plastic teeth did cost me a fortune though.