Pitt anesthesia certificate

[Dentist.2021]

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I've been accepted to Pitt and another dental school, and I'm trying to decide between the two (both OOS).

I was told by the students during the tour that Pitt has a unique program that allows you to get an anesthesia certificate as electives. I'm wondering if there are any current students that can tell me more about it?
I thought dentists graduating from dental schools would be able to perform anesthesia, so what's the point of this certificate?
Is this certificate still valid outside PA?

Thanks in advance!

 

[schmoob]

There's different methods and levels of anesthesia.

 

[beannaithe]

when i was there, it was to get a license in pa to use nitrous. iv sedation is a totally different ballgame and a 2 (3?) year long residency at pitt after dental school.

 

[morning92]

Pitt is pretty unique in that it has a (really, really fantastic) in-house anesthesiology department and is one of the few dental schools that offers post-graduate residencies in dental anesthesiology. The anesthesia program there is extremely long-standing, well-respected, and is considered to be the best in the US. If you choose to attend, you'll likely first come into contact with the faculty and residents during your rotation through the special needs department.

Anesthesiology offers a selective course that becomes available during the spring of your third year, when you'll begin, and runs through fall of your fourth year. It's very popular (looks really great on a resume for if you're interested in a GPR, OMFS, anesthesiology, or pretty much anything else) and space is limited, so it's a bit competitive to get into, but if you do, you'll be able to go in and follow them around/help out with cases for one clinic session a week for a year as well as attending some really informative lectures. They'll teach you how to chart everything, give you a nice rundown on the medications/important physiology/etc, and (if I remember correctly) you'll come out with all didactic/in-clinic requirements met for administering moderate sedation through enteral sedation.

Nitrous certification is something different and they'll run a standard course on that in your third year so that everyone interested is certified by the time graduation rolls around.

All dentists graduating from any dental school in the US will be able to administer anesthesia in the capacity that they'll be able to give local anesthetic injections. This is more of a sedation/anxiolytic program, which is significantly less common.

If this is something you're interested in, I'd strongly recommend you contact Pitt Dental's anesthesiology department. They're extremely proud of their program, for good reason, and they'd probably be super excited to tell you more about it.

 

[Dentist.2021]

Thanks for your detailed info! I'll contact them for more details 🙂