typical day for military dentist

[echecchio]

HI I have two question

1) what is a typical day like for a military dentist
I have heard that you see about 8 patients and that you get time at lunch to head to the gym for a workout.

2)What is the two year aegd in the army like?

What I mean is what is the schedual like. Do you have rotations at different specialties? How much time do you spend at each one. Do you work from 7:30 to 4:30 or is it longer. DO you have alot of after work work to do. Do you have any freedom to take time off. Would you consider it like dental school or more like working as a dentist but just with help? Also what was your location like, meaning outside of dentistry?

thanks for answering these questions as I am sure you very busy.

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[HawkeyeDDS]

HI I have two question

1) what is a typical day like for a military dentist
I have heard that you see about 8 patients and that you get time at lunch to head to the gym for a workout.

2)What is the two year aegd in the army like?

What I mean is what is the schedual like. Do you have rotations at different specialties? How much time do you spend at each one. Do you work from 7:30 to 4:30 or is it longer. DO you have alot of after work work to do. Do you have any freedom to take time off. Would you consider it like dental school or more like working as a dentist but just with help? Also what was your location like, meaning outside of dentistry?

thanks for answering these questions as I am sure you very busy.

1. however many you want to see. It might just be 4 when you start out, that's up to you. The great thing about the military is that you are not paid for production. If it takes you an hour to do an occlusal, you might suck, but you'll still get paid the same. There's no pressure for production, so take your time, do it right, and try to push yourself. You'll see plenty of old codgers that take 45 minutes to numb and put a rubber dam on. And they are the Colonels, so they can't really put pressure in your face to hurry up.

2. no experience with the 2 year, but with the one year, we could only take leave during Christmas. The work day was usually 7:30-4:30 (16:30) for you military type. A fair bit of pros work, but nothing like Dental school. Overall definately do one of the residencies, one or 2 year. Search other threads for the differences, it's been beat to death. It's better than dental school, but don't think you'll be treated like a dentist. You are after all a "resident". On the bright side, at least you get an assistant.

 

[jmick101]

1. however many you want to see. It might just be 4 when you start out, that's up to you. The great thing about the military is that you are not paid for production. If it takes you an hour to do an occlusal, you might suck, but you'll still get paid the same. There's no pressure for production, so take your time, do it right, and try to push yourself. You'll see plenty of old codgers that take 45 minutes to numb and put a rubber dam on. And they are the Colonels, so they can't really put pressure in your face to hurry up.

2. no experience with the 2 year, but with the one year, we could only take leave during Christmas. The work day was usually 7:30-4:30 (16:30) for you military type. A fair bit of pros work, but nothing like Dental school. Overall definately do one of the residencies, one or 2 year. Search other threads for the differences, it's been beat to death. It's better than dental school, but don't think you'll be treated like a dentist. You are after all a "resident". On the bright side, at least you get an assistant.

You get an assistant? There's the clencher folks, AEGD it is! Thanks for the response though.

 

[umkcdds]

technically, the ADA does not refer to AEGD dentists as "residents." they use the terminology "student." and they make a big deal out of not calling you "residents," but "students," instead. it's ridiculous.

 

[krmower]

In the Comprehensive Residency (aka 2-yr AEGD) here was our schedule.

M-th patients from 7:30 - 4:30. Friday academics. We would rotate through each specialty for an entire week during the month.
1st week prosth all day
2nd week endo in am perio in pm
3rd week comprehensive - anything you need
4th week OS (2nd year)
1st year we did 3 - 1 month rotations through Oral Surgery.
Pedo and Ortho were thrown in a couple times/month.

The ADA only allows a certain # of missed days and still allow a program to be accredited. Because of that June (the end of the academic year) and Christmas time become the 2 times you can take a lot of vacation time. During the rest of the year you will have the federal holidays off as well. Other than that you will usually not be allowed to take much time off except for family emergencies and medical issues. It is similar in all residency programs. There is an academic day/time built into every specialty program (ADA requirement for accredidation).

 

[caloriefree]

I have another question for you, if you don't mind. Since the 2yr AEGD program encompasses such a wide range of specialties, what are the actual procedures you can perform when you finish the program--i.e. are you able to extract wisdom teeth like OMFS do?

Secondly, why did you choose to do the 2-yr one instead of the one yr one? Did your decision to do the AEGD have anything to do with your clinical training while in dental school?

Thanks!

In the Comprehensive Residency (aka 2-yr AEGD) here was our schedule.

M-th patients from 7:30 - 4:30. Friday academics. We would rotate through each specialty for an entire week during the month.
1st week prosth all day
2nd week endo in am perio in pm
3rd week comprehensive - anything you need
4th week OS (2nd year)
1st year we did 3 - 1 month rotations through Oral Surgery.
Pedo and Ortho were thrown in a couple times/month.

The ADA only allows a certain # of missed days and still allow a program to be accredited. Because of that June (the end of the academic year) and Christmas time become the 2 times you can take a lot of vacation time. During the rest of the year you will have the federal holidays off as well. Other than that you will usually not be allowed to take much time off except for family emergencies and medical issues. It is similar in all residency programs. There is an academic day/time built into every specialty program (ADA requirement for accredidation).

 

[krmower]

I have another question for you, if you don't mind. Since the 2yr AEGD program encompasses such a wide range of specialties, what are the actual procedures you can perform when you finish the program--i.e. are you able to extract wisdom teeth like OMFS do?

Secondly, why did you choose to do the 2-yr one instead of the one yr one? Did your decision to do the AEGD have anything to do with your clinical training while in dental school?

Thanks!

It is based on: 1) your competancy 2) your comfort level what procedures you can do. Not all dentists going through the same training have the same skills.

Personally I do most types of extractions as long as the patient doesn't want/need to be sedated. I do all types of impacted wisdom teeth - horizontal, mesial angular, distal angular. I do periodontal surgeries. I do molar endo, etc...

It had nothing to do with clinical proficiency from dental school. At the time I graduated from Temple our requirements were higher than most schools - 12 dentures, 30 crowns, certain number of points in endo with some of it involving a posterior tooth, 150 extracted teeth, tons of operative, tons of scaling and root planing. We got a decent exposure and there was no lack of patients.

Doing a 1-year AEGD you will be able to do soft tissue impactions, some partial bony impactions, but unless you show that you can do more complex procedures, you are still somewhat limited. You will be able to do more than a general dentist with no training, but not as much as a comprehensive dentist (aka 2-yr AEGD).

An example of a 1 yr program would be each month you would rotate through each specialty a couple of times, and during your 12 month period you would do a 2 week stint with Oral Surgery. The amount of specific specialty training is drastically decreased.

Again the 12 month will give you more skills then what dental school will, but not as much as other programs.

 

[HawkeyeDDS]

Doing a 1-year AEGD you will be able to do soft tissue impactions, some partial bony impactions, but unless you show that you can do more complex procedures, you are still somewhat limited. You will be able to do more than a general dentist with no training, but not as much as a comprehensive dentist (aka 2-yr AEGD).

An example of a 1 yr program would be each month you would rotate through each specialty a couple of times, and during your 12 month period you would do a 2 week stint with Oral Surgery. The amount of specific specialty training is drastically decreased.

Again the 12 month will give you more skills then what dental school will, but not as much as other programs.

I'm not going to get into a "texas pissing match", but my Oral Surg. experience was considerably more in depth than what was mentioned
But it's variable. In my one year program I worked in the oral surgery clinic for a total of 9 weeks that year. It was in 1-2 week rotations working directly alongside 2 different oral surgeons. They let us do what ever we wanted and they would bail us out if we got stuck, I've heard it might be different at other programs and it depends on the Surgeons and how willing they are to help. By about the 7th week I was doing complete bony impactions, distoangulars etc and the Surgeons would sit in their offices and do who knows what. But that's because I wanted to. you will minimally be competant in patial bony impactions, and the best thing you will learn, is what you will be comfortable doing, and what should be referred. You will never be an oral surgeon unless you do the OMFS residency, don't kid yourself, but you will be able do do a variety of things that your compadres in dental school won't without further training. Most importantly you will learn the things to look out for and refer to the OS.

 

[umkcdds]

Doing a 1-year AEGD you will be able to do soft tissue impactions, some partial bony impactions, but unless you show that you can do more complex procedures, you are still somewhat limited. You will be able to do more than a general dentist with no training, but not as much as a comprehensive dentist (aka 2-yr AEGD).

An example of a 1 yr program would be each month you would rotate through each specialty a couple of times, and during your 12 month period you would do a 2 week stint with Oral Surgery. The amount of specific specialty training is drastically decreased.
QUOTE]

i do full bony impactions almost everyday now. and i did almost no operative during the 1-year (i think i did 15 restorations that weren't build-ups for fixed) - it was all specialty procedures.