i'll confess that although bored, i have not read all the posts in this thread. however, columbia definitely needs some more representation here.
i am a 2nd year student like stargirl. avin, you can go ahead and dismiss that all you like, but obviously i have 2 years more experience than you do. being that your whole argument is that the quality of one's education is heavily dependent on one's EXPERIENCE, try and have a little respect for those who have more than you. in addition to being a 2nd year student at columbia, i am very involved within the school, as a tutor, within student government, working for a professor, etc, etc, so i also get to talk to a LOT of different people, including 3rd and 4th years, alums, and even the deans.
the first two years at columbia are quite intense. taking most of the med school classes in addition to the dental courses is no walk in the park. and yes, we do not enter the clinic until the 3rd year. but these are things that all columbians know before they come here. avin, you seem to be accusing columbia of somehow trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. this is not the case, so why do you insist on arguing it? at interview, applicants are presented with the facts/stats and the fact is, columbia has had one of the top 3 average board scores (approx 90) year after year, the other two being harvard and uconn, and they both have class sizes (35-40) that are half that of columbia (75). i challenge you to present a similar stat for temple. i don't know how temple fares on the boards, but i'm guessing it does not compare.
Board scores are used as the barometer for dental education, not just by the schools themselves, but also by pg programs. now, you may feel that the medical education which these exams test are unnecessary for a dentist, but being that our profession deems it necessary, perhaps you should have chosen another profession. why learn about the pancreas? because god help you if you have a diabetic patient in your chair and you don't know how to modify your treatment for all the complications which his disease and his meds may present. and sure, you can just go ahead and memorize the chart of precautions, but if an emergency should arise, and you don't know how to handle it because you don't know the underlying mechanisms of his disease, you're sure gonna wish that your dental school had given you a more solid medical background when you get that letter from the patient's lawyer sueing you for malpractice.
now...clinical experience. yes, columbia students get less of it. but what you fail to realize is that dental school is all about providing the foundations from which to build on. columbia does that just as well as any other school, and will only grow stronger with curriculum changes which include even more preclinical courses in operative, prosth, perio, and endo within the first 2 years. now, at some other schools, you can build on those foundations while still in dental school, whereas you cannot as much at columbia. this i grant you. but, it is still FAR from being comprehensive. most of the dentistry which one learns, that is REAL WORLD dentistry, comes only after you've received that diploma and have worked side by side with other dentists, be it in private practice, gpr, or specialty programs. my sister graduated from nyu 3 years ago. now THERE is a program with plenty of clinical experience. she still decided to do a gpr after graduating and has worked in private practice since. she insists that from her daily work as a dentist now, she learned maybe 10% from dental school, and the other 90% from her gpr and private practice experiences. and that 10% is the basics which we ALL get in dental school, no matter which one you've attended. that having been said, the only real benefit that i see for more clinical experience within the dental school setting is to feel more confident in working with patients before you graduate. this is huge, of course. but that confidence can stem from having seen more patients and done more procedures, or it can come from having a solid medical education and knowing the basics from which to build. whatever floats your boat. in choosing a dental school, i went with the latter because gaining clinical experience is only a matter of time, and within a dental school setting it isn't that much anyway. a solid medical education, on the other hand, you can only get once, and that's in school.
perhaps you disagree, but then leave it at that and stop insisting that columbia sucks. if you prefer sacrificing a medical background for some more time on the clinic floor, that's your prerogative, but again, our profession has chosen to emphasize this education for a reason. otherwise, dentistry would be a trade rather than a profession.
