Alright, let me give you guys a little more info on my experience at Nova.
I'll start off by saying that I'm sure that dental school, no matter what school you go to, will be a very stressful time that is not very fun. However,Nova does what it can to make things as difficult as possible on it's students. I would recommend this school ONLY if you speak spanish, are from South Florida, or have applied to dental school multiple cycles and only got in to Nova. If you got accepted to Nova and have other options (including waiting a year and re-applying to your state school) I would certainly exhaust those other options.
So I guess the first thing that may be important to hear as a pre-dent considering Nova is that every class I've known of, from a couple years ahead of me, to the D2's when I graduated, had at least one, usually 2 or 3 people who were repeating a year. Of course their reasons for having to repeat vary, but I know of at least 1 that was held back due to a subjective grading of a cavity prep. The teacher didn't like him, and failed him. It's as simple as that ($50,000 in tuition and a year of lost income all because of a teacher with a grudge) I've also known of a few students who have had to repeat classes because of the teacher not liking them. These people should not have "failed", and it was completely at the discretion of ONE professor, with zero oversight and no chance for appeal. Sounds good, right?
Well, you may be saying "yeah, but people have to repeat years at every dental school, etc". True. But here is the scary part. Some of these classes (including the one mentioned above where the students had to re-take the class the next year) are taught by FOREIGN-TRAINED "DENTISTS" WITHOUT DENTAL LICENSES!! That's right, the people who are teaching you dentistry at Nova, who are grading you, and can make or break you in some classes, are NOT QUALIFIED TO PERFORM THESE PROCEDURES!!
I would estimate that about 85% of the faculty have never had dental licenses in the US. This is because, as you may know, Nova brings in about 20-25 International dentists at the end of first year. After these international dentists graduate, they either try to get in to one of Nova's post-doc programs, or teach there (Nova doesn't have to pay them much since they have zero experience in the real world, and they have to work there because they can't pass the boards).
A school that puts unlicensed, foreign-trained dentists on their faculty, and in some cases, in charge of entire semester-long classes is VERY disturbing to me and exemplifies extremely poor judgement and leadership.
Don't get me wrong, there are a handful of good, helpful faculty at Nova. The problem is, that for every one good faculty member, there are 5 terrible and/or incompetent faculty. Not to mention there is a group leader system, and if your group leader isn't one of the good faculty, you are at a HUGE disadvantage. This is because the group leader is supposed to facilitate making sure you get the procedures you need to graduate. Some take this responsibility more serious than others. I witnessed MANY of my classmates scrambling around the last semester of school (and even in "overtime" in May, a month that we were supposed to have off) to try to get requirements done. When it gets to the point that students who come to clinic everyday, work hard, and still can't get their req's done on time, that indicates a systemic problem at Nova. And they are certainly at that point.
Most of the difficulties finding procedures in my class were in removable prosth. You're probably thinking, "but this is south florida, there are plenty of old people without teeth walking around." You would be correct in that assumption. And we also heard constantly about the "6 month waiting list" to get into the school. I figured out at the very end of school that the "waiting list" is a sham. It's sole purpose of existence is to tell students and pts that there is a waiting list. For some reason, Nova can't seem to get pts needing dentures through the door. Or if they do, they send them to PG Prosth.
Which brings me to my next point. There is a reason why "getting Nova'd" is a phrase. Here's an example, but scenarios like this are ubiquitous and happen every. single. day. I had a pt that I was seeing for the 3rd apptmt to present a treatment plan. (That's right, I had already seen this pt for 7 hours, so with the 3rd apptmt we're moving to our 8-10th hour together). We were going to do a denture on the top and lower partial. The prosth faculty came over (actually the director of prosth) and told me this pt had to go to PG prosth. I begged to do the denture because I had not even done one yet and it was close to the end of 3rd year, to no avail. So I wasted 3 apptmts and 10 hours with the pt, not to mention the hours of labwork to pour and mount casts, etc. Nova has zero consideration for your time as a student which is very valuable because there are only so many hours in a day and you've got a lot of work to do. I can't stress this enough: scenarios like this are the norm more often than not.
You really spend all of 3rd year just trying to get to the point where you can do actual dentistry on your patients. And then, after all the hoops appear to have been jumped through, it's 4th year, and you only get a chair one day a week at that clinic. (Better hope those pts you spent data collecting, quad scaling, building rapport with, etc all of 3rd year can come to the Davie clinic on the day you're assigned! If not, oh well, just some more wasted time, right? You can practice drilling when you're taking boards.) The rest of your time, you get to drive to various rotations, which range from southern areas/ghettos of Miami to north of West Palm Beach (approx. 70 miles from the davie campus, in morning rush hour traffic. safe and fun!)
There is not only a problem with the faculty. The "Nova way" goes all the way to the top. In fact, I would argue that the administration is the main reason why students fall behind in req's. I know one student who met with administration (deans) voluntarily, and regularly, because they were behind on req's (and definetly not due to not being in clinic or being lazy, I saw this student at school ALL THE TIME. "getting Nova'd".)but were working desperately to graduate on time. They gave this student absolutely ZERO help. The only thing they would say is "talk to your group leader". Well, the group leader wasn't doing his job, and was part of the problem. So their advice was "keep doing what you've been doing". They were licking their chops in hopes of getting an extra summer's worth of tuition. The student busted their ass to get out of there, and against all odds, succeeded. No thanks to Nova. I'm not sure if everyone in the class was so lucky. I know that I saw several "D5's" walking around the clinic when I started my 4th year. Again, Nova trying to squeeze every last drop of $ out of their students.
I think another part of the problem is the culture of fear that pervades Nova. You are constantly reminded that attendance is mandatory. Not only do they make you scan an ID card when you walk into class, but they will also sometimes pass around attendance sign-in sheets. What is this, 3rd grade? Also they will schedule meetings or classes on a Saturday usually once a semester, and sometimes with only a couple of weeks notice (see: no consideration for student's time). Planning on going out of town that weekend? Better cancel your non-refundable airplane tickets that you bought 2 months ago....or else There is always some sort of threat that if you don't show up or don't do this or that, you'll be in trouble, have to see the academic progress committee, etc. So if you enjoy being threatened and being treated like a 3rd grader, Nova may be good for you.
So if you're in to getting your time wasted, being taught (and graded!) by unlicensed and foreign-trained "dentists", having to make ethical decisions (do I do this procedure because Nova says I need to and I may not get another chance, who cares about the pt's needs?) based on bad school policies and logistics, and overall just spending four years hating your dental school, Nova is for you!
