Guest nanoarray Posted July 5, 2003 Report Share Posted July 5, 2003 I'd like to know the pros and cons of the dental programs in the UofA versus UofS. Any tips will help. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LestatZinnie Posted July 5, 2003 Report Share Posted July 5, 2003 i do not know deep details about both school but have heard that u of s is not that great and has financial problems, which may be the reason why they admit so many out of province students and charging them $30k plus per year. in addition, no one i ever met enjoyed living in saskatchewan, unless you are a rural kind of person. u of a on the other hand has great reputation and funding. edmonton is also a better place to live, since despite the fact that the city does not have much to offer it is close to calgary and banff. there is NO contest her imo. u of a is superior in every way to u of s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nanoarray Posted July 5, 2003 Report Share Posted July 5, 2003 I think dental schools usually have financial crisis. I've talked to my dentist. She said the UofA dentistry almost closed in 1997 or 98. They sent 10 students to UBC and were still in the process of negotiation with other dental schools (such as Saskatchewan, Manitoba) about sending their students to those schools. Until.....the UofA medicine decided to resuce the dentistry, providing funding to its own dental school. So, now these two faculties merged, but the dentistry has to listen to whatever the medicine told them to. As such, maybe that's why UofA dentistry adopts PBL (problem-based learning) and the dental students have to spend their first two years with medical students. My dentist and her assistant don't like PBL program. Students felt they are not very competent. They waste their first two years studying nothing or little about dentistry. So, on the other hand, UofS dentistry still stands on its own (with very expensive tuition, of course). Students have started handling dental tools since the 2nd week of the first year. I've phoned one dental clinic in BC in a hope to talk to the new dentist who graduated from UofS in 2002, but she was busy. However, the receptionist told me that she is the most competent among her associates. I assumed her associates will be likely from UBC, which uses PBL too. I don't know. This is only a case study. I need more info. Please help. I'm thinking about applying to these schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kosmo14 Posted July 5, 2003 Report Share Posted July 5, 2003 LestatZinnie, I think you are sorely mistaken about the U of S. First of all how can you comment on the financial situation of a school if you know nothing about it. Second, obviously you have never lived in Saskatoon. I have lived in Edmonton and Saskatoon, and I would choose Saskatoon over Edmonton anytime. Saskatoon is not rural (unless you class a city of 200 000 rural). We have everything Edmonton has. I have not talked to a dentistry student that is disappointed in the education they get here. It is true they get into the practical aspects of thier education right away. BTW- since when is 401 km close (distance between Edmonton and Banff), even Jasper is a 3 hour drive. So in the end you didn't REALLY give any solid evidence why UofA is "superior" to U of S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest summervirus Posted July 6, 2003 Report Share Posted July 6, 2003 Yeah, I agree with kosmo14. To tell you the truth, from what the dentists in my class tell me, the UofS is a terrific school! It has terrific equipment (better than what UofA has to offer, from what I'm told). However, I know someone that's in his fourth year of dentistry at the UofS and if I remember correctly, I believe he told me that he took many of the same courses as the med students during his first two years... just like what you would expect at the UofA and UBC. Nanoarray, I don't completely understand what you say when you said, "UofS dentistry still stands on its own" because it seems like it's structured very similarly to UofA. But, hey, I don't really know too much about the dentistry program at the UofS so I could very likely be wrong... especially since everything I do know is second-hand! In the end, however, I do know that both schools are credible and there are great dentists that have come from both schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nanoarray Posted July 6, 2003 Report Share Posted July 6, 2003 Thank you, LestatZinnie, kosmo14, and summervirus, for replying to this posting. I wonder when students start to actually do dental work on patients in both schools. It would also be interesting to know the amount of clinical work required in both schools, such as the number of crowns, bridges, root canals, amalgam/composite restoration, gingivectomy,...etc that each student has to perform in order to graduate. I know that UofA has that famous Open Wide day. I think it's an excellent idea. They also have Satellite Dental Program or Dental Outreach Program, which I don't really know about much, but just the name of the program looks pretty cool. Hopefully some one can enlighten me about the satellite program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LestatZinnie Posted July 6, 2003 Report Share Posted July 6, 2003 you're welcome and good luck to you for whichever school you choose to attend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest toothy Posted July 6, 2003 Report Share Posted July 6, 2003 I think as a rule, most schools start all-out clinic work in 3rd year, with only limited exposure to real patients in yr2 (i.e. general exam, prophy, possibly removable prostho). Nobody will let you do stuff on people before you have learned it from a book and practiced it on a mannikin or fellow classmate. Don't worry too much about requirements. All schools have to go through an accreditation process and I'm sure you will have practiced a bit of everything. It seems schools with fewer specialties tend to let the students do tougher cases because there are no specialist students competing for them. To put things in another perspective, let's say one school makes you do 10 molar endo, and another just 5. Well guess what, you might need to do 100 before you feel deep down inside that you have it firmly in your grasp. So it doesn't matter that you didn't do as many at one school as opposed to the other. You'll still have to do 90-95 of them in private practice. Regardless which school you attend, when you come out you'll still be slower than the guy you're associating for, and you'll refer lots of cases out (to your boss or specialist). Eventually having gained confidence you can start to tackle more difficult procedures. A worthy question though (for which I don't have an answer) is how well the clinic is administered. Some places have a tough time lining up patients for the students, which can be a real pain. Be sure to ask recent grads or current students about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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