Why do we train so long?

[D1Bound]

Hello. So I've been getting this question a lot over the years. "Why do you have so many years of school?" I really don't know the answer to this. Why does the United States have a longer pathway to become a dentist than other nations? Is the financial reward dentistry brings in this country making it that much more competitive in attempt to weed people out? Or are we training to a level to be so deeply in tune with the core sciences that we are graduating better prepared for research? Or is it that our standards of care are just that much better due to the rigor our pathway has? Thanks

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[HatInTheCat]

I’ll try to keep it concise. Dentistry as a science is different than dentistry as a clinical skill. Dentistry as a science, IMO, could take an entire four years to learn, ranging from dental materials, conducting research, biomedical knowledge, and so on. Dentistry as a clinical skill takes time, patience, error, and apprenticing to develop. I believe that the four years of dental school are very hard for very different reasons. So, having a previous background in sciences, art, communications, which is all gained under a four year degree (assumingely) should round people out to develop the cognitive and psychomotor dispositions needed to do the job.

 

[chlrbwls]

I would like to also add that it also opens up to other students that majored in different/non science topics during their earlier careers and also to people that devoted their life to another career path prior to coming to dental school.

For these folks, rather than reapplying to a 6yr BSc DMD/MD/PharmD program, as long as they have their pre reqs done, they can easily transition into the 4 yr program which is now 2yrs shorter than the 6yr transition program.

Even now, UoP offers 3 yr track and case western offers 5 yr MD/OMFS programs

These shorter programs are out there but also could potentially translate to more time crunch schedule but obviously it is definitely doable programs. Just have to do your research and apply to those programs.

Lastly this way, it kind of weeds out people that are not committed to the pathway. This allows people that are actually interested in dentistry admitted to the graduate programs rather than early committing yourself to a longer program with difficulty in transferring to another major.

 

[D1Bound]

I’ll try to keep it concise. Dentistry as a science is different than dentistry as a clinical skill. Dentistry as a science, IMO, could take an entire four years to learn, ranging from dental materials, conducting research, biomedical knowledge, and so on. Dentistry as a clinical skill takes time, patience, error, and apprenticing to develop. I believe that the four years of dental school are very hard for very different reasons. So, having a previous background in sciences, art, communications, which is all gained under a four year degree (assumingely) should round people out to develop the cognitive and psychomotor dispositions needed to do the job.

Would you say that the United States focuses more on the science aspect than other nations, thus having a longer training pipeline?

 

[AONLINE]

Would you say that the United States focuses more on the science aspect than other nations, thus having a longer training pipeline?

Yes. My classmates in the foreign dentists program all said that the sciences are taught in a much more rigorous way in the DDS curriculum here. In a lot of other countries dentists are trained more like teeth mechanics than doctors.

 

[femidhansboy]

Yes. My classmates in the foreign dentists program all said that the sciences are taught in a much more rigorous way in the DDS curriculum here. In a lot of other countries dentists are trained more like teeth mechanics than doctors.

Haha! I see what you did there. How can you lump all dentists from all countries from outside the US (190+) and make such a generalized statement. From personal experience my medical science courses back home are way more vigorous than that here. I got 95+ in my pathology and pharmacology classes here during my program while back then I used to get 50s which is more like Cs. But back to the topic, I think it depends on the school, the curriculum and overall the philosophy. From my own experience here so far, I would say the US schools and dentists are leaders when it comes to the Patient management,innovation, research, materials, tech.

 

[luisfigo]

In russia my professor had to go to medical school before dental school. As far as long, are you talking about college + dental or just the 4 years?

 

[oralcare123]

In many countries education is free or almost free. They are encouraged to educate faster
In US it is a money making process. The longer, the more money is made
Very simple
It is a very inconvenient truth, but necessary to convince people to pay more
In regards to foreign education - it is not always worse, often it is more thorough
In former socialist countries dentists often were educated first as medical doctors and then as dentists. Why? To be prepared for a next world war

 

[HatInTheCat]

Would you say that the United States focuses more on the science aspect than other nations, thus having a longer training pipeline?

I would say the US has taken a bit more strides to rebrand its programs as colleges and schools of “dental medicine” rather than colleges and schools of “dentistry” because of the bad rap dentistry got for historically being more of an art and less of a science. The branding has been done this way to ease the public’s concern with way too much subjectivity in treatment from doctors.

 

[pookey123]

because admin waste your time with useless junk so it takes longer to learn what you really need to know