Originally posted by DBEAR
Hey ec,nyla, and bing
Let me see if I can answer some of your ?
1. Could you give us a brief overview of perio? Today, perio is just not treating people with perio dz. The practice that I am looking at going into is 1/3 treating perio dz, 1/3 perio plastic surgical procedures (soft tissue grafts for root coverage, esthetic CL, etc) and 1/3 implants or implant preparation procedures like guided bone regeneration, ridge(socket) preservation, sinus lifts. However with that said, the bread and butter procedures will be perio sx to treat perio dz. In the past, perio was a specialty that concentrated on removal of tissue and bone to treat the dz. Today and especially in the future, perio is a specialty that will concentrate on regenerating the periodontium (Bone, PDL, and cementum). This is what really interested me first with perio. Instead of just removing deseased tissue, we are removing it and replacing it with living tissue and restoring it with its original god given anatomy. Now are we there yet? Somewhat. Today, we use cadaver bone, cow bone, growth factors, cow collegen, autogenous bone to regrow maybe 60% of what has been lost to perio dz. Can we do this predictably on every patient? No but the time is coming in our lifetime. This is what makes perio exciting is the ability to grow new tissue in someone's mouth. I have not even talked about the advances in root coverage or implants yet. So you can see that perio is dynamic field.
2. What interests you most? soft tissue grafts to cover roots and implants
3. Is it competitive to get into this specialty? I think you can get into any specialty you want to if you really try. However, as you already know some are harder to get into than others. For perio, you should be in the top1/3 of your class and score around 90 on NB. However, I know several people who did not acheive this and are still a resident somewhere. Not all perio programs are the same so in order to go to one where you will be adequately trained then you should have good class rank and NB scores.
4. If so, what do u suggest we do in dental sch? Research is #3 behind rank and NB scores
5. How did you decide to do a speciality in the first place? I did an externship so I was able to see the day to day life of a perio resident
6. Did you already know you wanted to do perio, or decide after doing well on the perio section of the boards part I and some classes? I decided after my externship
7. Trying to decide between shcools that are:exepensive but have a large portion of graduates that go on to specialties or cheaper but most (90%) of graduates become general dentists?
Go to your state school (most have a pretty good rep). You can save alot of money. Going to USC, Tufts, Boston, Penn, ect and spending 50,000 a year is crazy. I think those are good schools but you can get the same or maybe even better for less. I paid 50,000 for all 4 years. Also if you take out loans, the 200,000 spent on a private school turns out to be 400,000 with interest. Just my 2 cents.
Hope this helps. Any more ? please ask
