Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery - Dental Columbian Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 14 text:

Operative Dentistry IRVIN L. HUNT, Jr. D.D.S. Instructor in Dentistry EDWARD H. KOCH A.B., D.D.S. Assistant in Dentistry LEROY L. HARTMAN, D.D.S., Sc.D. Professor of Dentistry MAURICE BUCHBINDER B.S., D.D.S. Assoc. Prof, of Dentistry CARL R. OMAN D.D.S. ssoc. Prof, of Dentistry WILLIAM MILLER B.S., D.D.S. Assistant in Dentistry MILTON R. MILLER B.S., D.D.S. Instructor in Dentistry GEORGE F. LINDIG D.D.S. Assoc. Prof, of Dentistry HERBERT P. FRITZ B.S., D.D.S. Assistant in Dentistry

Page 13 text:

The Graduate To-day WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, D.D.S., Professor of Dentistry Dentistry in the past twenty years has made very rapid progress. To substantiate this statement one may cite many examples. More important, however, than any tangible example which may have contributed to this progress is the ability of the present day dental graduate to cope with the problems of dentistry. One may then reasonably ask why the graduate of to-day is better prepared to serve society in the capacity of a dentist than a graduate of twenty years ago. This I feel, may be attributed to the gradual increase in scholastic requirements of candidates entering dental schools and to the increase in the standards of courses of study within the dental schools. The result of this improved teaching is a dentist who is able to view dentistry from an increasingly wider horizon, who with his improved foundation is capable of conducting his practice on a higher plane, and who with his fundamental training in the basic sciences is capable not only of seeing the vast unsolved problems in dentistry, but also of doing real research in helping to solve them. It has been my very great privilege to have been so situated in this rapid progress as to be able to watch it closely, to observe the type and the training of the men who have passed through the dental schools year after year. Each year there have been improvements in the quality of the dental student and in his ability to comprehend and absorb not only more but more complex material. He has become more critical, more anxious to understand fundamentals and, because of this trend, a very important step in dental training has been made. This year ' s class, 1938, is the first of which a thesis has been required. It is hoped that for each thesis some original work will have been done. If so the student will have derived great benefit, not simply because he will have made a real contribution but because he will have learned from short exposure to research methods to be accurate, thorough, and open- minded, yet skeptical and analytical. These are very important attributes of a dental practitioner and of the man who will guide dentistry in the future. With graduation the don list must outline and direct his own educational program. Unless he does continue to study and keep abreast of develop- ments he will soon be lost. Today the graduate is qualified to proceed in any direction he wishes. If he wishes to do research w ork he may, as he has been properly trained fundamentally. The position of the graduate of today is no longer static but, due to the vision and guidance of leaders in the past, he is now trained in the manner of a scientist, and, as he takes his place in practice, in teaching, and in research, the profession and society will benefit by his ability and knowledge. Nine

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Postgraduate and Graduate Dental Training HOUGHTON HOLLIDAY, A.B.. D.D.S.. Professor oi Dentistry, and Associate Dean Attempts to meet the needs of the general practitioner who has been out oi school for a few years have been made in various cities by dental societies and voluntary groups of dentists. However, the work offered by these dental society groups is at best fragmentary and does not fill the need for additional training for men already in practice. Such courses are vastly better than no courses at all and are to be preferred to the type occasionally given by dental equipment supply houses. It is hoped that the time will come when the schools will be able to take over prac- tically all of this training. The fact that there are not dental schools in all communities where we have dentists should not prevent this plan from working out satisfactorily for most dentists. In this age of rapid transporta- tion, if the dentist can not come to the school the representatives of the school can often go to the dentists. Oi perhaps greater importance than the need for these postgraduate courses is the need for adequate training and certification in the various branches of dental practice which have acquired the status of dental specialties. Here again the schools have made only a beginning and as a result the specialists have secured their training chiefly through apprentice- ships or by self-instruction. As for certification, the specialist has for the most part been his own certifying board. The term of specialist has been self-imposed and the public has had no means of judging the qualifications of one who styles himself a specialist. The general practitioner has the right to practice any branch of dentistry, but when the dentist sets himself up as a specialist in one field of dentistry, implying thereby that he has ability superior to that of the general practitioner, the public and the profession are entitled to have proof of his qualifications in the form of special training or the passing of an examination, or both. The nature of this graduate training for specialization is still to be determined, but one thing seems certain and that is that it should be on a university basis and qualitatively equivalent to graduate training in other branches of the university. Since the least graduate work to carry uni- versity recognition is that for the master ' s degree, it might be well to start with that in the field of dentistry. It is conceivable that in any of the special clinical phases of dentistry two academic years of work might be so planned as to satisfy the graduate school requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Dental Surgery or Orthodontics or some oiher special field of dental practice. Eleven