Hi All!
I took Duggan's WREB course and just wanted to give a review. I didn't see any others out there so hopefully this will be helpful. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
1) He offers long courses (2.5 months) so if you haven't practiced dentistry in awhile, you can take it slowly to get back into practice.
2) He is good at evaluating preps and also has good hand skills.
3) It's all hands-on so you are able to practice a fair amount and get feedback.
4) The Prostho review was decent (taught by another dentist), although it was geared toward California Board, not WREB.
5) Endo portion was decent (taught by another dentist), although they had no radiograph backlights to properly view radiographs.
6) He is picky with your work and grades harder than examiners, so it helps you to make yourself do better work.
Cons:
1) He doesn't really know what's in the Candidate Guide and about the exam itself. For example, he didn't know that you get a 3 point deduction when a modification is rejected.You have to inform him about the exam procedures, not vice versa!
2) He tries to make you buy his instruments and materials (usually at a marked up price) and will charge you for every tiny thing, like screws, wax, etc. Nothing is free besides using his gloves and masks. All other disposable items must be purchased.
3) He will use your materials and teeth (that you bought from him) to do group demonstrations instead of having a set of stuff of his own just for that purpose. For example, he demonstrated putting on a rubber dam and instead of having his own materials ready for demonstration, he wanted to use students' materials. Since no one brought all their rubber dam instruments/materials that day, he made one student purchase a clamp, another bought rubber dam sheets, etc. He basically wouldn't spare one rubber dam sheet on his own just to demonstrate. He said that if we didn't have the materials, he couldn't do the demonstration. He did this also with demonstrating preps, etc.
4) His Prostho and Perio manuals were practically unrelated to WREB. He just compiles a bunch of materials and puts them together, but they don't relate to WREB. He sometimes copies out of other textbooks and puts it in the manual. He uses the same materials for California Board too, so there is no specfic WREB review manual.
5) He did not cover PATP at all.
6) He is constantly taking personal phone calls while teaching. He will very often interrupt teaching so that everyone has to wait for him while he is chatting on the phone. He also will spend time on his computer doing photo projects and when you ask him to check something, he will often make you wait in order to finish his computer stuff first. He doesn't realize that we are also paying for his time and a lot of time is wasted this way.
7) He makes you pay a $200 deposit to check out his DVDs (demonstrating various things). That's not the bad part. The bad part is that when you return all of your DVDs to him in order to get your $200 back, he is very hesitant to return the money. He will make all different types of excuses (like money is at another office, your receipt has a missing signature, etc) in order to avoid giving back the deposit. Some people wait a couple weeks to get money back and sometimes had to argue. It's almost as if he hopes that you'll just forget about it. Also, a bunch of the DVDs didn't even work.
Well, those are the things I can think of. Hope this is helpful.
I took Duggan's WREB course and just wanted to give a review. I didn't see any others out there so hopefully this will be helpful. Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
1) He offers long courses (2.5 months) so if you haven't practiced dentistry in awhile, you can take it slowly to get back into practice.
2) He is good at evaluating preps and also has good hand skills.
3) It's all hands-on so you are able to practice a fair amount and get feedback.
4) The Prostho review was decent (taught by another dentist), although it was geared toward California Board, not WREB.
5) Endo portion was decent (taught by another dentist), although they had no radiograph backlights to properly view radiographs.
6) He is picky with your work and grades harder than examiners, so it helps you to make yourself do better work.
Cons:
1) He doesn't really know what's in the Candidate Guide and about the exam itself. For example, he didn't know that you get a 3 point deduction when a modification is rejected.You have to inform him about the exam procedures, not vice versa!
2) He tries to make you buy his instruments and materials (usually at a marked up price) and will charge you for every tiny thing, like screws, wax, etc. Nothing is free besides using his gloves and masks. All other disposable items must be purchased.
3) He will use your materials and teeth (that you bought from him) to do group demonstrations instead of having a set of stuff of his own just for that purpose. For example, he demonstrated putting on a rubber dam and instead of having his own materials ready for demonstration, he wanted to use students' materials. Since no one brought all their rubber dam instruments/materials that day, he made one student purchase a clamp, another bought rubber dam sheets, etc. He basically wouldn't spare one rubber dam sheet on his own just to demonstrate. He said that if we didn't have the materials, he couldn't do the demonstration. He did this also with demonstrating preps, etc.
4) His Prostho and Perio manuals were practically unrelated to WREB. He just compiles a bunch of materials and puts them together, but they don't relate to WREB. He sometimes copies out of other textbooks and puts it in the manual. He uses the same materials for California Board too, so there is no specfic WREB review manual.
5) He did not cover PATP at all.
6) He is constantly taking personal phone calls while teaching. He will very often interrupt teaching so that everyone has to wait for him while he is chatting on the phone. He also will spend time on his computer doing photo projects and when you ask him to check something, he will often make you wait in order to finish his computer stuff first. He doesn't realize that we are also paying for his time and a lot of time is wasted this way.
7) He makes you pay a $200 deposit to check out his DVDs (demonstrating various things). That's not the bad part. The bad part is that when you return all of your DVDs to him in order to get your $200 back, he is very hesitant to return the money. He will make all different types of excuses (like money is at another office, your receipt has a missing signature, etc) in order to avoid giving back the deposit. Some people wait a couple weeks to get money back and sometimes had to argue. It's almost as if he hopes that you'll just forget about it. Also, a bunch of the DVDs didn't even work.
Well, those are the things I can think of. Hope this is helpful.
