What are your opinions on residency programs? My fear is that I'll graduate from school thinking that I'm equipped with all the knowledge and skills that will be necessary for private practice, only to find otherwise. I believe around 20-25 grads of 105/110 students at the school that I will be attending continue on and do a residency, which is quite a lot.
I'll admit that I'm VERY pro-residency. I did a 2 year GPR right out of d-school and loved it! What I learned there and the skills I picked up really made a difference in how I practice today, if for no other reason than my GPR time showed/convinced me that there very well might be other/better ways to do certain procedures than what you learned in d-school. However, not all GPR/AEGD programs are the same. There are some where you'll end up spending a good percentage of the year being nothing more than an oral surgeon, instead of a well rounded general dentist. My rule of thumb, and what I tell the students that I teach who may be thinking about a GPR/AEGD is that after an interview, if you don't feel atleast a little nervous/scared about if you'll be able to handle the workload, then you don't want to go there since you won't puch yourself and hence take your dentistry to new levels.
BTW, as for percentage of grads going into residency(and I'm talking ANY type of residency here now, not just GPR's/AEGD's) - my class at UCONN graduated 39 and 36 out of 39 went onto some type of residency.
From the perspective of a senior dentist who owns his/her own practice, when hiring an associate wouldn't they prefer someone with an AEGD or GPR under their belt so not too much hand holding will be necessary and production would be higher as a result of more repeat exposure during residency?
If I'm looking to hire an associate/potential future partner, personally I'd prefer someone who did a GPR/AEGD over a fresh out of school grad. Hand holding is one big reason, and pure experience is another. No if's ands or buts about it, dentistry is a profession where you continue to evolve how you practice over your ENTIRE career - sometimes this evolution is due to new materials, sometimes its a new treatment philosphy and sometimes is because of knowledge you learned from watching your work(both succeed and FAIL) overtime. So experience very often is a plus.
If CE courses are just a bunch of self promoting shams, then is there any way to weed out these types and find reputable CE courses where you actually learn something?
ask questions to colleagues, friends and in places like dentaltown and dr. bicuspid, etc as mentioned already. Plus, what may be a cr@ppy CE course/topic to one person and their intersts/experience level may be the GREATEST CE course ever to another person.
