Western's Strengths and Weaknesses

[HopefulDDS]

Can anyone speak about Western's program as generally and specifically as you want? 

Particularly interested in:
-Clinical exposure (relative to US schools, what procedures are off limits)
-Opportunities after graduation (both hiring in GD and specializing)
-Degree of preparation for Boards (have they adapted to new format?)
-Workload and support to not fall behind

P.S. My personal perspective is that I have been accepted to US schools and want to make the most informed choice possible should I also be accepted to Western
 

[KentuckyFriedBlaziken]

I got all the answers:

Clinic exposure: every single Canadian school is trash compared to US in clinical exposure amount across the board , and Western is definitely no exception. You may get more exposure to complicated cases (except for ortho) at Western but it overall exposure will be low.

Opportunity after graduation: well if you want to practice in Canada it saves you from writing 2 boards than if you went to a US school, other than that I don't think it matters much which school you went to. With regard to jobs, the connections with sales reps/part time dentists may make it easier to find a job in the surrounding London area, but there are many ways to network outside the school as well. With regard to specialty, all 3 people I know of in my class, that actually applied to specialties in the US got in this year. Same with GPR/AEGD, I only know of 1 reject from a GPR.

Boards: pretty much zero instruction, you study for the boards on your own and that's probably true everywhere, we pass along resources as a class amongst each other. However I have seen some good review courses/resources come out of US schools, but you'd do best to ask the specific school. 

Workload: It's a bit uneven across the years, and at least 50% of your clinical years is wasted on stupid admin and misc matters. Support is good from your peers, we have great notes and generally try to help the lower years do better than we did. From faculty it is uneven once again, but by and large everyone wants you to graduate. 

 

General comment: I personally think clinical education is just so much better in the US as a whole, however within 1 year of practice you'll catch up, and your debt load is about 40-50% less if you go to a Canadian school. You get what you pay for essentially, and the final decision is yours. 

 

Feel free to PM me for any more specific questions. 

 

[Zaandrei.]

Hehehe... no comment xD

33 minutes ago, KentuckyFriedBlaziken said:

I got all the answers:

Clinic exposure: every single Canadian school is trash compared to US in clinical exposure amount across the board , and Western is definitely no exception. You may get more exposure to complicated cases (except for ortho) at Western but it overall exposure will be low.

Opportunity after graduation: well if you want to practice in Canada it saves you from writing 2 boards than if you went to a US school, other than that I don't think it matters much which school you went to. With regard to jobs, the connections with sales reps/part time dentists may make it easier to find a job in the surrounding London area, but there are many ways to network outside the school as well. With regard to specialty, all 3 people I know of in my class, that actually applied to specialties in the US got in this year. Same with GPR/AEGD, I only know of 1 reject from a GPR.

Boards: pretty much zero instruction, you study for the boards on your own and that's probably true everywhere, we pass along resources as a class amongst each other. However I have seen some good review courses/resources come out of US schools, but you'd do best to ask the specific school. 

Workload: It's a bit uneven across the years, and at least 50% of your clinical years is wasted on stupid admin and misc matters. Support is good from your peers, we have great notes and generally try to help the lower years do better than we did. From faculty it is uneven once again, but by and large everyone wants you to graduate. 

 

General comment: I personally think clinical education is just so much better in the US as a whole, however within 1 year of practice you'll catch up, and your debt load is about 40-50% less if you go to a Canadian school. You get what you pay for essentially, and the final decision is yours. 

 

Feel free to PM me for any more specific questions. 

 

Yes.... sure... that^ 




XD
But idk, in regards to the boards prep: I think we know the major topics quite well - or at least supposed to! *Ahem, KFB... attendance is key. Joking aside, going through released boards questions, most of us should have no problem getting 75-80% of them right without studying specifically for the NDEB

[cleanup]

Go to Western and then do a GPR/AEGD.

[BROSCIENTIST]

Go to UofT or the states (if you can afford it)

[Compton]

21 hours ago, KentuckyFriedBlaziken said:

I got all the answers:

Clinic exposure: every single Canadian school is trash compared to US in clinical exposure amount across the board , and Western is definitely no exception. You may get more exposure to complicated cases (except for ortho) at Western but it overall exposure will be low.

Opportunity after graduation: well if you want to practice in Canada it saves you from writing 2 boards than if you went to a US school, other than that I don't think it matters much which school you went to. With regard to jobs, the connections with sales reps/part time dentists may make it easier to find a job in the surrounding London area, but there are many ways to network outside the school as well. With regard to specialty, all 3 people I know of in my class, that actually applied to specialties in the US got in this year. Same with GPR/AEGD, I only know of 1 reject from a GPR.

Boards: pretty much zero instruction, you study for the boards on your own and that's probably true everywhere, we pass along resources as a class amongst each other. However I have seen some good review courses/resources come out of US schools, but you'd do best to ask the specific school. 

Workload: It's a bit uneven across the years, and at least 50% of your clinical years is wasted on stupid admin and misc matters. Support is good from your peers, we have great notes and generally try to help the lower years do better than we did. From faculty it is uneven once again, but by and large everyone wants you to graduate. 

 

General comment: I personally think clinical education is just so much better in the US as a whole, however within 1 year of practice you'll catch up, and your debt load is about 40-50% less if you go to a Canadian school. You get what you pay for essentially, and the final decision is yours. 

 

Feel free to PM me for any more specific questions. 

 

Anyone apply/match into OMFS?

[Zaandrei.]

Yup^

[ottawaliquid]

I would say our operative and endo experiences are pretty good @ western.  Our prosth (both fixed and removable) seems more limited in terms of cases completed.

What's ortho?  Paeds?  

Wrote boards today and they were a breeze..    am I right, Zaandr?

[Zaandrei.]

Like a leaf in the wind ^

[crackingup]

On 2/25/2019 at 3:35 PM, KentuckyFriedBlaziken said:

I got all the answers:

Clinic exposure: every single Canadian school is trash compared to US in clinical exposure amount across the board , and Western is definitely no exception. You may get more exposure to complicated cases (except for ortho) at Western but it overall exposure will be low.

Opportunity after graduation: well if you want to practice in Canada it saves you from writing 2 boards than if you went to a US school, other than that I don't think it matters much which school you went to. With regard to jobs, the connections with sales reps/part time dentists may make it easier to find a job in the surrounding London area, but there are many ways to network outside the school as well. With regard to specialty, all 3 people I know of in my class, that actually applied to specialties in the US got in this year. Same with GPR/AEGD, I only know of 1 reject from a GPR.

Boards: pretty much zero instruction, you study for the boards on your own and that's probably true everywhere, we pass along resources as a class amongst each other. However I have seen some good review courses/resources come out of US schools, but you'd do best to ask the specific school. 

Workload: It's a bit uneven across the years, and at least 50% of your clinical years is wasted on stupid admin and misc matters. Support is good from your peers, we have great notes and generally try to help the lower years do better than we did. From faculty it is uneven once again, but by and large everyone wants you to graduate. 

 

General comment: I personally think clinical education is just so much better in the US as a whole, however within 1 year of practice you'll catch up, and your debt load is about 40-50% less if you go to a Canadian school. You get what you pay for essentially, and the final decision is yours. 

 

Feel free to PM me for any more specific questions. 

 

Wow thx!! Everything you've said reinforces bits and pieces that I've heard repeatedly. Thx for putting it all together so succinctly!!

 

[beautifulteeth1]

On 2/25/2019 at 4:26 PM, cleanup said:

Go to Western and then do a GPR/AEGD.

Why do a GPR rather than just getting the practice in year one in the field while finally knocking down the debt? (I hear GPRs don't pay well - is that true?)

[cleanup]

4 hours ago, beautifulteeth1 said:

Why do a GPR rather than just getting the practice in year one in the field while finally knocking down the debt? (I hear GPRs don't pay well - is that true?)

OP is asking about Western vs. U.S. schools. Main concern seems to be clinical exposure, not money. If they want clinical exposure under supervision and see a bunch of stuff, GPR/AEGD is the way to go. Can you see/learn a lot in an associateship? Sure, but it's probably more likely you'll learn a grander variety of things in an academic setting. That was my experience at least.

If you want to make money, then sure, go work. But don't expect to learn more clinical things than you might in a GPR. 

If they go to Western they'll be saving by not spending it all on U.S. tuition. One year of lost income (and not entirely lost, you'll still earn at least enough to pay for living expenses on a GPR) is not going to kill you.

To be frank, if your only concern is "How do I make a lot of money," there are more efficient ways of doing it than dentistry.

[HopefulDDS]

18 hours ago, cleanup said:

OP is asking about Western vs. U.S. schools. Main concern seems to be clinical exposure, not money. If they want clinical exposure under supervision and see a bunch of stuff, GPR/AEGD is the way to go. Can you see/learn a lot in an associateship? Sure, but it's probably more likely you'll learn a grander variety of things in an academic setting. That was my experience at least.

Thank you for sharing. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. Can you expand what a GPR looks like? Do you do rotations? Are you guaranteed exposure to different/more procedures than in dental school? 

Would you say Western + GPR is a richer clinical learning experience than US only?

[cleanup]

7 hours ago, HopefulDDS said:

Thank you for sharing. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. Can you expand what a GPR looks like? Do you do rotations? Are you guaranteed exposure to different/more procedures than in dental school? 

Would you say Western + GPR is a richer clinical learning experience than US only?

That's a question I can't answer. Every GPR is different, but GPRs are generally hospital based or have some significant hospital component, while AEGDs are mainly school-based and may or may not have any hospital experience. GPRs will involve more exposure to overlapping medical fields like emerg, anesthesia, ENT, plastics, while AEGDs may or may not. AEGDs often involve tuition as well, while GPRs often don't.

It's all programme dependent. 

Second question is very context-dependent as well, unfortunately. All depends on which programmes you're picking.

[hopeful42]

On 3/13/2019 at 9:25 PM, cleanup said:

That's a question I can't answer. Every GPR is different, but GPRs are generally hospital based or have some significant hospital component, while AEGDs are mainly school-based and may or may not have any hospital experience. GPRs will involve more exposure to overlapping medical fields like emerg, anesthesia, ENT, plastics, while AEGDs may or may not. AEGDs often involve tuition as well, while GPRs often don't.

It's all programme dependent. 

Second question is very context-dependent as well, unfortunately. All depends on which programmes you're picking.

Which US programs would you recommend for their clinical exposure?

[HopefulDDS]

30 minutes ago, hopeful42 said:

Which US programs would you recommend for their clinical exposure?

This may not be a helpful comment, but it truly seems like across the board US clinical experience is pretty great. From general anecdotal evidence I've read, you can't go wrong. If you want to narrow it down a bit solely based on clinical, perhaps urban vs rural campuses are better to get a bigger patient pool. I'm sure others have done more research on specific schools and what they let their students are exposed to.

[Negura Bunget]

On 2/26/2019 at 12:58 PM, Compton said:

Anyone apply/match into OMFS?

I'm a midlevel OMFS resident at a MD-integrated 6 year program in the states and went to a US dental school.  I was accepted to both UofT and Western in my application year but decided to head down south, and I don't regret it at all. I can tell you that many people I know that went to Western and UofT have struggled to match to OMFS. Most are stuck doing multiple non-cat years or just gave up. Your overall chances of matching to a US OMFS program out of a US dental school are better than from a Canadian dental school (though its still super difficult right now to match w/o US citizenship or permanent residency. You need to crush the CBSE). For the most part, OMFS programs in the states will expose you to a much broader scope of OMFS, in additional to exposing you to fellowship opportunities. This is not taking into consideration dental school tuition fees, which can be a deterrent to come to the states.

[Compton]

40 minutes ago, Negura Bunget said:

I'm a midlevel OMFS resident at a MD-integrated 6 year program in the states and went to a US dental school.  I was accepted to both UofT and Western in my application year but decided to head down south, and I don't regret it at all. I can tell you that many people I know that went to Western and UofT have struggled to match to OMFS. Most are stuck doing multiple non-cat years or just gave up. Your overall chances of matching to a US OMFS program out of a US dental school are better than from a Canadian dental school (though its still super difficult right now to match w/o US citizenship or permanent residency. You need to crush the CBSE). For the most part, OMFS programs in the states will expose you to a much broader scope of OMFS, in additional to exposing you to fellowship opportunities. This is not taking into consideration dental school tuition fees, which can be a deterrent to come to the states.

In the most recent cycle, a few Canadian dental school students (no US status) that I know who applied to OMFS matched into 4 year programs with 55-60 CBSE scores. Not sure if this is a new trend or an outlier of a cycle....

[Negura Bunget]

27 minutes ago, Compton said:

In the most recent cycle, a few Canadian dental school students (no US status) that I know who applied to OMFS matched into 4 year programs with 55-60 CBSE scores. Not sure if this is a new trend or an outlier of a cycle....

Interesting. Those are low scores. Not even a pass for the Step 1. Your only shot really would be a 4y at that stage, which handicaps you further in terms of the number of programs available to apply to. Not sure what program that is or if they already did non-cat year(s), but that is not an anecdote to use as a bench mark for sure. There are many US applicants with scores in the 70s that go unmatched. 

Anecdotally, when I was interviewing some years back (12 programs), I'd say the large majority of applicants were in the 70s. The few Canadians I met along the interview trail were either in the upper 70s of 80+; some of them didn't match. Just something to consider. 

[HopefulDDS]

On 2/25/2019 at 7:35 PM, BROSCIENTIST said:

Go to UofT or the states (if you can afford it)

Can you elaborate on why? Coming from a schulich dental student, I'd like to hear why you endorse other schools and not western.

[Compton]

54 minutes ago, HopefulDDS said:

Can you elaborate on why? Coming from a schulich dental student, I'd like to hear why you endorse other schools and not western.

Schulich has a lot of internal problems and issues that aren't present at other dental schools. Talk to current students outside of interviews and campus...there are many controversial stories 

[BROSCIENTIST]

4 hours ago, HopefulDDS said:

Can you elaborate on why? Coming from a schulich dental student, I'd like to hear why you endorse other schools and not western.

You can pm me.