Patients seen in Dental Schools

[cup of joe]

I am to assume that students wouldn't be willing to answer the question, but how may times do the D3/4 students at your school go into clinic? how many patients do they see in one day? Individual responses are fine and vague information works too. I'm just confused when student tell me their school is "objectively" better, but their reasoning sounds subjective in my opinion.

I'm asking this question because I'm starting to get the assumption that every school has problems with seeing patients, but it's what you can make out of the school and utilize their resources... some school may provide a simpler time of having cases for students, or have a harder time, and etc. Please feel free to answer the question, even if it's subjective. If you like to elaborate, please feel free to, or not

Q: how may times do the D3/4 (you/your school) go into clinic? how many patients do you/they see in one day? what is the most common procedure you have treated and completed?

I'm sorry if this has been asked before or I may be in the wrong forum

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[BellaNella]

For us it is not the availability of patients, but the time it takes for you to set up and how long it takes you to perform procedures that seems to be the limiting factor. At our school, we split days into 2 sessions (morning and afternoon) so DS3s are in clinic 7 sessions a week and DS4s are in clinic 8 sessions a week. We usually see 1 patient in a morning session which is 3 hours and 1-2 patients in an afternoon session which is 4 hours. But you can maximize how many procedures you perform on a person.
I would prefer to do 3 restorations on a single patient than do a single restoration on one patient and then set up the room again to do another restoration on a second patient. You burn clinic time that way. But it can be done. That is more student preference.

I wouldn't say that there is a more common procedure. I prefer Pros to Operative so I do the required operative and then do mostly pros. So my most common procedures have been crowns and removable pros.
But I know people who want to do OS and their most common procedures are EXTs. Because we make our own schedules and screen for patients, as long as you get your requirements done you can spend the rest of the time doing whatever you want.

DS3 year has a more strict structure to it so people are mostly doing operative, removable, and fixed. DS4 year is when you can branch out and get the experience you want out of it (which for me was pros heavy).

Does that answer your question?

 

[THS]

D2s see 2 patients a week.
D3s start the year with 5 clinic sessions a week, which changes to 8 clinic sessions a week after Winter break. We typically see 1 patient per session unless doing something quick like denture adjustments, recementing temps, etc. But like an above poster said, its not very time efficient to see more than one patients per session due to breakdown/cleanup/setup of cubicles and typing up treatment notes.
D4s have 8 clinic sessions a week as well.

During Peds rotations, D3s and D4s will see 4 patients a day. During oral surgery rotations at the hospital, we see however many patients walk through the door.


The most common procedures, number-wise would have to be fillings and extractions, followed by crown and bridge, removable, endo, then other stuff.

 

[cup of joe]

For us it is not the availability of patients, but the time it takes for you to set up and how long it takes you to perform procedures that seems to be the limiting factor. At our school, we split days into 2 sessions (morning and afternoon) so DS3s are in clinic 7 sessions a week and DS4s are in clinic 8 sessions a week. We usually see 1 patient in a morning session which is 3 hours and 1-2 patients in an afternoon session which is 4 hours. But you can maximize how many procedures you perform on a person.
I would prefer to do 3 restorations on a single patient than do a single restoration on one patient and then set up the room again to do another restoration on a second patient. You burn clinic time that way. But it can be done. That is more student preference.

I wouldn't say that there is a more common procedure. I prefer Pros to Operative so I do the required operative and then do mostly pros. So my most common procedures have been crowns and removable pros.
But I know people who want to do OS and their most common procedures are EXTs. Because we make our own schedules and screen for patients, as long as you get your requirements done you can spend the rest of the time doing whatever you want.

DS3 year has a more strict structure to it so people are mostly doing operative, removable, and fixed. DS4 year is when you can branch out and get the experience you want out of it (which for me was pros heavy).

Does that answer your question?

Thank you for answering! And yes that does answer my question and does give me a better understanding of how a school can help prepare you clinically. Also, it does give me a perspective of what kind of a student/clinician attitude I need to have when I start

 

[cup of joe]

D2s see 2 patients a week.
D3s start the year with 5 clinic sessions a week, which changes to 8 clinic sessions a week after Winter break. We typically see 1 patient per session unless doing something quick like denture adjustments, recementing temps, etc. But like an above poster said, its not very time efficient to see more than one patients per session due to breakdown/cleanup/setup of cubicles and typing up treatment notes.
D4s have 8 clinic sessions a week as well.

During Peds rotations, D3s and D4s will see 4 patients a day. During oral surgery rotations at the hospital, we see however many patients walk through the door.


The most common procedures, number-wise would have to be fillings and extractions, followed by crown and bridge, removable, endo, then other stuff.

Thanks THS! It's pretty awesome you start early in D2!

wow breakdown/cleanup/setup and treatment notes take that long? is there hope you can cut down the time to do so?

 

[THS]

Thanks THS! It's pretty awesome you start early in D2!

wow breakdown/cleanup/setup and treatment notes take that long? is there hope you can cut down the time to do so?

I've definitely gotten faster at setup and breakdown, but it still takes a while. 5-10 minutes for setup, typically 10 minutes for breakdown and cleanup. Typing up tx notes on the computer requires waiting on an instructor to approve everything.

 

[StrugglingDS]

At my school:
DS2's: 1 clinic session/week (Fall) --> 2 clinic sessions/week (Spring) --> 5 clinic sessions/week (Summer); Typically 1 patient seen per clinic session
DS3's: 8 to 10 clinic sessions per week (occassional Friday PM and saturday AM clinics) w/ typically 1 to 3 patients seen per clinic session (depending on which clinic you are at - endodontics, oral surgery, implant denture, GP, pediatrics, etc.); Beginning summer of DS3 until end of DS4, students get assigned to rotations in two different clinics run like private practice on certain days/weeks (1 is a community clinic, 1 is a satellite clinic in a different campus owned by the school). During these rotations, 2 to 5 patients are typically seen per clinic session (this is when you get a dry run of the real world wherein in your operatories are all set-up and all you have to do is work on the patient. There are also assistants to take your radiographs/impressions and breakdown the operatories).
DS4's: Same as DS3s

Each clinic session is normally 3 hours