Patient Pool?

[Utes]

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Hey guys, quick question from a Pre-dent.

I'd really like to go to a school that sees a lot of patients. This may be naive, but I feel like the more patients that I see, then the better I can refine my skills and become a good clinician. Practice makes perfect, no?

Anyhow, I applied to a bunch of schools as my state does not have a dental school. I mainly picked schools to apply to based on if they have historically accepted students from my state (Utah) and if I thought my GPA & DAT scores matched with what they were looking for. If any of you attend one of these schools, could you give me a rundown on if you see a lot of patients or if it is difficult getting patients? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

Baylor
Boston
Case
Indiana
Marquette
Nova
Buffalo
Temple
Tufts
Louisville
Maryland
Pitt
VCU

 

[Dental08?09]

The largest patient pool is NYU at about 340,000 patient visits a year.

 

[drhobie7]

I'd wager just about any school could give you more patients than you can handle. Treatment planning patients and getting them to the stage where they're ready to be worked on is a relatively long, involved process. You wouldn't want a hundred patients because you wouldn't be able to give all of them the attention they demand. The result would be that they bail on you. This happens all the time. Dental students can't handle managing numerous patients, fail to call them, and the patients decide to go elsewhere for their care. Then the dental student complains about not having enough patients. If the student simply stayed on top of things, he'd have plenty of patients.

 

[ISU_Steve]

The largest patient pool in NYU at about 340,000 patient visits a year.

That's all well and good, but one problem: It's located in NEW YORK.

 

[unlvdmd]

Tons of patients at UNLV. There is a waiting list just to get screened. Never a shortage!

 

[USUaggie]

Maryland has plenty.

 

[DrTacoElf]

Temple has tons.

 

[aphistis]

Temple has tons.

No shortage at IUSD. Like drhobie said, since my clinical skills aren't very developed yet, I'm getting patients almost faster than I'm able to manage their cases.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Arizona wasn't on your list, but we all get 15 patients to start out with. Like Bill said, that's an overwhelming number at first, especially when you've *just* stepped into clinic, and haven't even had a chance to get your head on straight.

It becomes even more overwhelming/exciting when you realize that you need to do a bunch of emergency treatment before you can even treatment plan the patient, and your first procedures end up being complete dentures or RCT, and you haven't ever even done a class I filling.