Just curious, how do you think your experience would be without doing that 1 year GPR. Is that still a requirement for Navy dentists? I would think doing that GPR gives you credentials or ability to perform molar endo, extractions, etc.
xhamburgers and jim85,
When I went in I think the navy was taking like 120 new dentists a year. There were 24 GPR slots spread out among 5 hospitals, you had to apply and they were mildly competitive. there were an additional 80(I believe) 1 year AEGD slots that were very easy to get. The rest of the folks just went straight to a clinic, and basically OJT'd for extra skills.
GPR was best on your military resume if you had aspirations to specialize, either in the military or civilian residency after the military, and was basically a requirement if you were interested in OS. Both AEGD and GPR provided excellent hands on rotations in all the disciplines of dentistry (except we did no ortho, and my program did no removeable, little to no cosmetic dentistry either, Uncle Sam don't care if you have a beautiful smile.....lol) At the end of the year your clinic director checked you off as being "credentialed" to independantly do things like molar endo, partial and full bony impactions, crown lengthening and osseous surgery, simple apicoectomy, etc. etc.
Yes it helped when you got to your duty assignment, as you were given much more leeway to diagnose and even control your own schedule. I was at a "less desireable" remote location, so there were very few high ranking dental officers (the wisdom is that they had "paid their dues" and got first crack at the good coastal assignments). This helped because we had less specialists, and as young general dentists were allowed to perform all phases of treatment. As a GPR trained dentist (there were typically 3 or 4 of us out of 15 dental officers at my clinic) I got to keep a nitrogen tank IN my operatory, as I scheduled 3rd molars for myself 1 or 2 days a week, as I enjoyed surgery.
The guys who were right out of school I never really saw progress to the same comfort level with complex OS, endo and perio as those who did the 1 year programs. Bottom line, even though as junior dental officers we all got along, those of us with training, especially if we were trying to prepare ourselves for either residency or private practice, were more concerned with our OWN clinical experiences, versus trying to train up somebody who elected to skip the one year program (and some of them chose to skip it because they simply did not want to do the work, after dental school, because there is a good deal of work involved, particularly the GPR, which was known to be much more rigorous than the AEGD - in other words, if you wanted to be a stud
and treat the more difficult cases, you had to pay your dues........)
Hope this helps.
