UCLA dental students
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Bueler? ... Bueler? ...
It's a good post. But, what would be better is to do a search and that will give you a greater wealth of info. If that isn't enough, I'm sure ecdoesit, ziptree, and a few others will be more than happy to chime in. Happy digging.
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vaio said:
I have no idea because I've never attended any dental school besides UCLA. However, I can say completely without bias that it is in best location of the best city in the US. 😉
Unfortunately, you won't be able to find anyone who can give you a reliable comparison between UCLA and another school, since very few people attend more than one dental school. The best you can hope for is reading what people like/dislike about UCLA, without knowing how their opinions would change if they had attended another school.
For what it's worth, I'm happy and there is no other school I would have rather attended.
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drhobie7 said:
Ok, your putting way too much emphasis on semantics here...I'm just looking for things the schools stands out for, like research, faculty, specializations etc... that's all....but good to know your happy there
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vaio said:
It stands out for all those things.
The one thing that really stands out is the preclinical laboratory. I have been to several preclinical lab(been to 4, except LLU). I have to say we have the best one. Remember I am talking about preclinical laboratory, so sim lab doesnt count.
Ya, we do cast gold! Along with a bunch of old school things.
research: we are only moved to top 10 this year(NIH funding-wise). (only 5th among dental school.) UCSF stands out in that area. I talked with a couple students there. They pay students to do research (via NIH). I m doing it without being paid (MS program). So, even though the potential is there, we are not yet at the point that we could say we stand out.
Faculty, we used to have some world famous faculty. However, many of them have retired recently. Sad to see them leave us every month. But this is how it is like, WE are the future.
Specialty: since we select the brightest students from different places, there are many people who want to specialize. we have the reputation to develop great learning skill from already good test takers. basically the curriculum will push us to be our best. i think we do stand out.
I am truly happy(not my usual sarcasm) right now at the dental school. (knowing that I still go back to school even we are on vacation)
Ya, we do cast gold! Along with a bunch of old school things.
research: we are only moved to top 10 this year(NIH funding-wise). (only 5th among dental school.) UCSF stands out in that area. I talked with a couple students there. They pay students to do research (via NIH). I m doing it without being paid (MS program). So, even though the potential is there, we are not yet at the point that we could say we stand out.
Faculty, we used to have some world famous faculty. However, many of them have retired recently. Sad to see them leave us every month. But this is how it is like, WE are the future.
Specialty: since we select the brightest students from different places, there are many people who want to specialize. we have the reputation to develop great learning skill from already good test takers. basically the curriculum will push us to be our best. i think we do stand out.
I am truly happy(not my usual sarcasm) right now at the dental school. (knowing that I still go back to school even we are on vacation)
vaio said:
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ecdoesit said:
What professors left? Dr. White from radio? Yeah he was good. As you move along in the years you'll see there are still plenty of heavyweights. Dr. Beumer is world famous for prosthodontics. Dr. Moy is world famous for implants. Dr. Hargis is known everywhere for oral surgery/orthognathic surgery and has invented dozens of instruments, Dr. Kenney in perio. And then there's all the restorative faculty....Dr. Stevenson! That guy is the man! Dr. McLaren's name is synonymous with aesthetics. Dr. Gritz is amazing. These guys are the best in the world at what they do. It's part of the reason why UCLA's Aesthetic Continuum CE courses are the most attended CE courses in the nation.
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vaio said:
awsome prostho department/facility.
great dental research, lots of publications (despite the above about NIH funding, i think it's probably the top in the nation in dental research)
disclosure: i'm not a ucla dental student.
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StarGirl said:
Yeah, I also forgot to mention (along the pros lines) UCLA has one of the few residency programs in the country in maxillofacial prosthetics. Those are the doctors who make fake ears and noses for patients who are post-tumor resection. It's amazing. I have no desire to do it, but it's amazing.
Good to see raves about UCLA!
Hey ECdoesit, how do I look into the Masters program at UCLA? Can you tell me about it, or should I go knock the doors of a certain professor?
Hey ECdoesit, how do I look into the Masters program at UCLA? Can you tell me about it, or should I go knock the doors of a certain professor?
dr white left? how could it be? i know Mr. Mark Hunt left. He has been with our sch for 30 plus years. But even though not faculty, but maybe staff.
thanks for the nice input regarding ucla research.
it is just that we could do better. right now, it is not as high as it could be. being a dds/ms, the big R is very important to me.
the research door is always availiable. u just have to sacrifice something for it. one thing i found MS meaningless is that the lecture hrs take away time from doing real research. or, u just have to spend even more time to study for those extra classes and doing research at the same time. (this is why i got to call "crazy") if u r interested, talk with jason pinnell at the 1st floor. he would be more than happy to explain the program to u.
thanks for the nice input regarding ucla research.
it is just that we could do better. right now, it is not as high as it could be. being a dds/ms, the big R is very important to me.
the research door is always availiable. u just have to sacrifice something for it. one thing i found MS meaningless is that the lecture hrs take away time from doing real research. or, u just have to spend even more time to study for those extra classes and doing research at the same time. (this is why i got to call "crazy") if u r interested, talk with jason pinnell at the 1st floor. he would be more than happy to explain the program to u.
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drhobie7 said:
i'm curious, does the UCLA aesthetic continuum CE courses offer something related to implants? Is it a selective process to gain admission to these programs or can anyone with dough take these courses? The reason I ask is because I remember seeing something on a certain dentist's wall of acheivements something from UCLA about implants, and I wasn't sure what it was
you have to ask the sch about that. we are just people who try to graduate. CE is beyond my vision right now. even though there is a graduate student seminar where faculty could earn 1 CE unit for 1 hr of participation. we get some really great speakers such as myself, jk. for jason and ucla class of 2009, so how do u rate my speech today? got excited about asda? could we hijack your class thread again? cos i m too lazy to check both forums.
vaio said:
ecdoesit said:
Eric, well. I'll be joining the community service, mentoring, and pre-dental committee. I'm not much of a political suave, so I really just want to do my little things and enjoy what I'm doing.
The presentations was good. The game show to get all of us to participate was unique and did caught everyone's interest. However, the prizes were sort of given out in a subjective manner. It may seem to be more fair if it was a toothbrush for everyone who went up to the stage - rather than some people getting nice stuff and others gets a tooth paste.
But, it the UCLA chapter definitely seems very excited about ASDA.
I thought you would be more excited about it in your presentations, since you harked so much on it on SDN. ya?
so, wait, just to make sure we are still bragging about ucla.
our asda chapter at ucla is really strong too.
so this is another thing that it stands out.
money is very exciting
but finding ways to come up with money is difficult, man.
i m excited to do all those activities, but less excited about ways to get money. but since doing this will lead to fun activities for others. i m satisfied being the "funraising" committee as well.
my advice, stick with 1 organization and follow thru.
not sure how useful mentoring is to 1st year now. it might be better to join individual specialty clubs to do assisting/shadowing.
definitely, comm service and predental are from the last year asda rep
they are really good with a bunch of events.
actually, out of everybody, i just realize i havent met u yet.
this is so weird.
our asda chapter at ucla is really strong too.
so this is another thing that it stands out.
money is very exciting
but finding ways to come up with money is difficult, man.
i m excited to do all those activities, but less excited about ways to get money. but since doing this will lead to fun activities for others. i m satisfied being the "funraising" committee as well.
my advice, stick with 1 organization and follow thru.
not sure how useful mentoring is to 1st year now. it might be better to join individual specialty clubs to do assisting/shadowing.
definitely, comm service and predental are from the last year asda rep
they are really good with a bunch of events.
actually, out of everybody, i just realize i havent met u yet.
this is so weird.
jk5177 said:
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vaio said:
They teach tons of implant classes. Dr. Jovanovic is world renowned for implants and lectures frequently. Anyone can sign up for CE classes (as long as they are dentists). I can't comment on whatever was on that dentist's wall. It could have been CE or he could have been an oral surgeon who completed the 1 year implant fellowship which is extremely competetive. Even though CE is non-exclusive, that doesn't necessarily discount the education that dentists get from attendance. It just doesn't tell you anything about their ability to compete against their peers.
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vaio said:
Why my UCLA School of Dentistry experience is lacking:
1. Lack of an education
a. Lab does not prepare us for clinic
b. Clinic coverage is severely lacking in restorative
c. Different instructors tell us to do different things
d. Specialty clinics here arent teaching us anything
i. Teaches us to refer
1. ONLY THING IM LEARNING IS HOW TO REFER
2. Disrespectful
a. Rude receptionist (2nd floor, esp ortho, perio), central sterilization, chart room and OD
i. We have to kiss ass to get stuff done that theyre supposed to be doing for us anyways.
b. Rude instructors with no care for student teaching
3. Graduation requirements - very difficult to graduate on time since i'm lacking patients for my grad requirments
a. Different CPCs have different strengths; some have only operative, some only crowns, some with lotsa removables, and lots others with nothing
i. Why cant group directors WORK TOGETHER (or is that something not possible at UCLA School of Dentistry) and find out a way to BALANCE things (yes its big word two syllables .)
b. Having to pay to get credit for something
i. Either pt cant afford it, or we need it badly enough, since there arent that many patients in this stinking school to make meeting our requirements a guarantee
i. I wonder why there arent instructors returning here from previous years
ii. I wonder why this school doesnt get alumni donations
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pops317 said:
Are you a 4th year? Needless to say, I disagree.
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drhobie7 said:
and what year are you again? obviously not a 4th year...not long enough to have been in clinic and know what its like. preclinical and clinical life are nothing alike. how many ppl in the past few years have had to stay behind because of not meeting clinical requirements? do you even know about them? most of them had to stay behind because they didn't get the patients they needed, since the pt pool is so small. so before you go glorifying the school that most of its own graduates don't even like, take a seat and talk to your upperclassmen. ask them how they like/dislike it.
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pops317 said:
I'm a 3rd year (just like it says at the bottom of my posts) and I guess I haven't been in clinic as long as you (I'm assuming you are a 4th year). Maybe I've lucked out and gotten better patients assigned to me or the ones I've recruited have been better. However, from talking to my classmates my patient type and load is not unique. They're doing dentures, removable, implants, endo, operative, and perio surgeries. Plenty of my classmates have complex cases as well.
Of course I've heard about the several people that put in an extra summer quarter each year. Obviously I can't comment on their situation and how they got there. It's very possible that ineffective patient management contributed/caused their lack of completed treatments. I've been working my ass off since I got into clinic and wouldn't want any more patients right now.
I also understand that you guys are starting to feel the pressure to graduate. Your experience is no different from any other 4th year dental student. If you read posts from dental students from other schools you'll find that everyone stresses out about graduation requirements. People always think their school's problems are unique. They are not. Some things are just part of dental school.
I know a lot of people in your class and most of them seem happy. In fact I really like your class. Obviously you're not happy, but I don't know if going to a different school would have helped this. Some people just deal with dental school better than others. It's a very stressful experience.
Regarding rude administrators and faculty, yeah some people are a little rough around the edges, but I've found if you don't try and BS them and instead play by their rules (which are generally reasonable) there's no problem and they're decent people. I actually think all the people in the clinic are really nice. I do agree that the ortho and perio secretaries are not the warmest, but that's how they want to run those clinics and it works for them and the residents. I'd want a hardass secretary too if I worked in those clinics.
I think the clinical faculty are great. They've always been nice to me and helped me when I've needed it. But then I've always been reasonable with them. I've never whined or tried to weasel my way into/out of something. My experience has been if you're respectful they'll return the favor.
As for your comments about a lack of an education, I don't get it. We certainly had enough class time to teach these things. I've learned a hell of a lot, both in lab and class. I've felt well prepared for clinic from lab. You can't ever replicate the real patient situation, but I can't image how you can get closer than simlab. You can't diagnose caries on ivorine. Plus, it's just a tooth. If I screw up, great! Now I've got endo and crown requirements. After all, I am a student. I'm going to make some mistakes. 🙂
I was in clinic today and there was 1 restorative instructor for 3 students/patients. This is a great ratio and not the first time I've seen it either. I know we had some issues with one restorative faculty member flaking on clinic in the past but from what I've seen this has been fixed.
You said the only thing you've been taught is to refer. Are you planning on doing whizzies, ortho, and perio surgery in your general practice? There's a reason there are specialties. The specialty clinics can't teach you to perform their bread and butter to the standard of care of a specialist in the brief period of time they have you.
However, I've learned a ton from the endo clinic so far. Those instructors are great. I know we don't do much of the perio surgeries but who cares, unless you want to do perio and then it doesn't even matter because you'll get 3 years of that in residency. (I hate calculus)
Another thing you mentioned was paying for patient's procedures. Clinic subsidies have gone up since last year and now even endo is on board. I'll add that occasionally paying for patient's work is not unique to UCLA students. I've even talked with some of our international (PPID) students who told me they did the same thing when they were in dental school. Again, some issues are just part of dental school. When you consider our tuition is $25,000 less than USC, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
I haven't noticed the exodus of instructors you talked about. I've seen the same faces for the past 3 years. How can you complain about faculty like Hewlett, Gritz, Stevenson, Morgan, Fisher, and the lovable Urbach? These guys are awesome.
The last thing was about alumni donations. You probably won't believe it but the dental school gets the highest percentage of alumni donations of any graduate school. Sure Anderson gives more per alumni but doesn't have as high a percentage from each class. And why wouldn't you donate? You'll be making great money. Don't you want to see your school get stronger? Our education is over 50% subsidized by the state of California. The way I see it we owe the state something afterwards.
Listen, I don't want to get into some lame internet message board argument. But I do like our school and will happily tell people why. That's great that you can provide the other side. I think you'll find people like us in every dental school. Some people are going to like it and others will hate it. I'd venture it has less to do with the school and more with the individual.
I hope things get better for you.
I think one factor that our school takes for granted is that the quality of students. Basically, it is assumed we are going to cope with whatever they throw at us.
I am not sure what you meant by lack of an education. I think we are very "balanced" that we have to learn everything to a satisfactory level. It is too bad that we never have time to master our skills. How can you be sure if we have done it once and we will be good at it? Yes, we are learning a bunch of stuff that is very in depth in knowledge and not as much hands-on. I think it is finally going to be utilized. Recently, I saw the Colgate ad about anti-inflammatory toothpaste. The link between systemic disease and oral disease is definitely there. UCLA curriculum would work, only if we spend the time to advance our field.
TIME is the most critical thing. Nobody has time to do anything and make changes. Academics is responding very slow. You cant really make changes without making people mad (either faculty, staff, or students dont like the change). But there is light. As far as I know, our coursechair is slowly adapting to people's comments. Thank you all the years ahead of us for reflecting their experience to improve our life.
We shadowed central service. Seeing how much workload they have, I think they treat us, students, very very well. Cmon, knowing how much we are paying our staff, I am glad if they choose to remain at our school. Chart room is an entire different story though. Way too many departments and way too many regulations. Things change and people still stay static.
Teaches us to refer =) One of my classmate told our faculty that that person will refer the gold crown to another dentist. Of cos, I hope she is kidding. But I feel that my experience taught me not to place a crown on a real person. But I dont have to worry about that, because we first have to worry about convincing that patient to do a gold crown.
I disagree with our faculty not coming back next year. We do have a lot of returning faculty. Again, knowing how well we are paying them compare to private practice, people make their choices. However, we do lose some people who have been teaching us for a long time.
Dentistry in general is highly subjective. Obviously, different faculty have different expectation. I was in the sim lab and had to repeat 3 class II even though I know they are pre-clinically acceptable. At the time, I was not very happy about those comments, but I m quite satisfied knowing that I improved my speed significantly. I definitely want the best for my patients, so as long as it makes sense, I dont mind those comments.
Our school doesnt have much alumni contribution, but we have all these people donating: like Dr Kim and family for the clinic; many faculty for the 4th floor lab; student lounge, the new Yip Center for head and neck oncology. We do have a lot of outside funding besides our falling govt contribution.
I am not sure what you meant by lack of an education. I think we are very "balanced" that we have to learn everything to a satisfactory level. It is too bad that we never have time to master our skills. How can you be sure if we have done it once and we will be good at it? Yes, we are learning a bunch of stuff that is very in depth in knowledge and not as much hands-on. I think it is finally going to be utilized. Recently, I saw the Colgate ad about anti-inflammatory toothpaste. The link between systemic disease and oral disease is definitely there. UCLA curriculum would work, only if we spend the time to advance our field.
TIME is the most critical thing. Nobody has time to do anything and make changes. Academics is responding very slow. You cant really make changes without making people mad (either faculty, staff, or students dont like the change). But there is light. As far as I know, our coursechair is slowly adapting to people's comments. Thank you all the years ahead of us for reflecting their experience to improve our life.
We shadowed central service. Seeing how much workload they have, I think they treat us, students, very very well. Cmon, knowing how much we are paying our staff, I am glad if they choose to remain at our school. Chart room is an entire different story though. Way too many departments and way too many regulations. Things change and people still stay static.
Teaches us to refer =) One of my classmate told our faculty that that person will refer the gold crown to another dentist. Of cos, I hope she is kidding. But I feel that my experience taught me not to place a crown on a real person. But I dont have to worry about that, because we first have to worry about convincing that patient to do a gold crown.
I disagree with our faculty not coming back next year. We do have a lot of returning faculty. Again, knowing how well we are paying them compare to private practice, people make their choices. However, we do lose some people who have been teaching us for a long time.
Dentistry in general is highly subjective. Obviously, different faculty have different expectation. I was in the sim lab and had to repeat 3 class II even though I know they are pre-clinically acceptable. At the time, I was not very happy about those comments, but I m quite satisfied knowing that I improved my speed significantly. I definitely want the best for my patients, so as long as it makes sense, I dont mind those comments.
Our school doesnt have much alumni contribution, but we have all these people donating: like Dr Kim and family for the clinic; many faculty for the 4th floor lab; student lounge, the new Yip Center for head and neck oncology. We do have a lot of outside funding besides our falling govt contribution.
pops317 said:
