Why DMD and not DDM?

[Aceofspades]

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Ok, so DMD is supposed to stand for "Doctor of Dental Medicine" so shouldn't it be DDM? Is it arranged ad DMD to mimic the MD degree with a D (dentistry) in front of it? DDS stands for Doctor of Dental Surgery and all the letters match. What gives?

 

[MSDMD]

it does stand for the latin phrase for doctor of dental medicine (Doctorae Medicinae Dentae, or something like that.

 

[Sbosu]

" in 1867 when Harvard University added a dental school. Harvard University only grants degrees in Latin. Harvard did not adopt the D.D.S. or "Doctor of Dental Surgery" degree because the Latin translation was "Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris" or C.D.D. The people at Harvard thought that C.D.D. was cumbersome. A Latin scholar was consulted. The scholar suggested the ancient "Medicinae Doctor" be prefixed with "Dentariae". This is how the D.M.D. or "Dentariae Medicinae Doctor" degree was started."

 

[BlueToothHunter]

I think some Mexican schools award degree C.D. for dental graduates. Just my 2 cents.

 

[DCRedskinsRule]

" in 1867 when Harvard University added a dental school. Harvard University only grants degrees in Latin. Harvard did not adopt the D.D.S. or "Doctor of Dental Surgery" degree because the Latin translation was "Chirurgae Dentium Doctoris" or C.D.D. The people at Harvard thought that C.D.D. was cumbersome. A Latin scholar was consulted. The scholar suggested the ancient "Medicinae Doctor" be prefixed with "Dentariae". This is how the D.M.D. or "Dentariae Medicinae Doctor" degree was started."

That's some good stuff right there. Where'd you dig this up? 👍👍

 

[Lidopaine82]

That's some good stuff right there. Where'd you dig this up? 👍👍

Probably from one of the sticky threads in the Pre-dental forum.

 

[Sbosu]

I just googled it, it took a couple of pages to find though; it may be in one of the predental forums though i dont know

 

[crazy_sherm]

It's actually in this forum, in the stickied FAQ thread.

 

[dinesh]

The search button is your friend 😳

 

[Aceofspades]

So Harvard came up with it and everyone else just copied. Interesting.

 

[BuckeyMcGee]

I think some Mexican schools award degree C.D. for dental graduates. Just my 2 cents.

Not sure about this, my friend an international student at Nova went to school In Guadalajara and recieved a D.D.S.

 

[Ebull]

My brother took several latin courses in college and I asked him a similar question. He said the latin language has no formal sentence structure, meaning you can say the words of a sentence in any order and the sentence will still make sense. So he postulated that the DMD is just more esthetic instead of MDD or DDM. But thats just his opinion I have no idea if it is accurate.

 

[jb54ram]

That's some good stuff right there. Where'd you dig this up? 👍👍

This was something we had to learn in our first year of dental school. During the only class I found interesting the first year; Dental History. We learned about GV Black, the Amalgam Wars, and Colorado's own Painless Parker. 😀

 

[Dr.Millisevert]

Not sure about this, my friend an international student at Nova went to school In Guadalajara and recieved a D.D.S.

Dr. Fermin Carranza, author of Carranza's clinical perio text... I'm not sure where he went to dental school (maybe somewhere in central or south america) and I think he has a "CD" degree.

It looks as though dental schools in Agentina, or elsewhere in Latin America may offer the CD degree.

 

[armorshell]

That's some good stuff right there. Where'd you dig this up? 👍👍

http://www.amazon.com/Excruciating-History-Dentistry-Toothsome-Oddities/dp/0312185766