I am a resident at the Manhattan VA. The program is a good one, and I assume it is quite competitive, but don't know how residents are chosen. We do a wide variety of dental treatment - it is a good intermediate between the supervision of dental school and the complexity of procedures done in private practice. So far, I have a moderate amount of program experience with crowns, dentures, RPDs, restoring implants, fillings, and SC/RP. I am hoping for more experience with fancy procedures (veneers, placing implants, etc.), but it doesn't look like that is on my current horizon. Here are some pros and cons I can think of:
Pros:
-Don't have to consider finances for most treatment plans
-Get to try new materials and methods (program director is excellent at suggesting alternative treatment plans or ways to think about procedures learned in dental school)
-Each resident has his/her own operatory that feels more like private practice
-Light call schedule - every 5th week, off site, with rare calls
-Specialty residents are around for consultation
-16 residents (incl. speciality residents) makes for a nice camaraderie
-Lots of companies (esp labs and implant co's) coming through for intro to their products
-Government job, so it is well-paid, and some nice perks (transporation covered)
-Access to NYU dental library and VA library with good dental journals and textbooks
-Occasional exposure to very good clinicians through lunch lectures and treatment planning sessions
-Many days off (28 paid, 14 sick, 10 government holidays, though GPRs only take 14 paid and get paid the rest at program completion)
-Clinic open from 8:30-4:30, so you have your evenings
-In-house lab for pouring alginates, and some other work, though program director likes you to do your own labwork if possible
-Few weeks spent in rotations. You do 2 weeks of internal medicine and 1 week of anesthesia.
-Online patient charts and perio/hard tissue charting.
Cons:
-Light patient load. I have worked in a high-volume community health center where there are constantly emergency walk-ins and you see about 10 patients a day. Here you see 4-5 a day, and there are very few walk-ins. If you want somewhere to develop your speed, you will have to try hard to do so here.
-There is some tension between assistants and dentists here, which can make the workplace unpleasant at times.
-Because there are specialty residents, many of the more complicated procedures are expected to get referred or triaged to them.
-High cancellation and no-show rate because there are no consequences for patients who do this.
-Many psychiatrically involved patients, which makes it challenging. One way to qualify for dental care is for psych reasons.
-Quality of educational lectures varies widely, with 30-40% of lectures underwhelming.
-Clinic chairs are quite problematic, with no handpiece speed modulation, no ability for left-handed doctors to work at them, and frequent malfunctions (though they do look good!)
-No digital radiography.
I hope this helps you a bit. I know when I was applying for GPR's, I found it extremely difficult to find information about programs and ended up interviewing at 11 places just to find out what they were like. I only listed 3 on my match list, and really only wanted to come here. Overall, I have been happy with my choice, though I think my expectations may have been higher than they should have been. I have had lots of free time, which has been a good opportunity for me to think about starting a practice or specializing or associating, depending on the day 🙂 Best of luck with your interviews and selection!
