- Comprehensive two-day course in Periodontology both non-surgical and surgical!
- Learn Rotary endodontics and get some file sets complementary
- Two sessions and two systems of Dental Implants
Well, well, well I am sure even you do get many such messages on your phone, e-mails on your mailbox and advertisements on your social media profile, and by whom? The list is endless my dear colleagues isn’t it! What surprises me a little though is that, the same Periodontology which I learnt in three years of duration is comprehensively covered in two days time, the same endodontists who probably finished learning a year or may be three years back are ready to train well enough in a short course format, the same Dentist who just finished getting trained in LASERS from an institute abroad is one of the most recommended trainer in dental LASERS, and the same dental surgeon who barely did ten straight forward dental Implant cases is training on the dental Implant systems. Even if you are one of them who has been following this then halt for a moment and just introspect, why are we rushing in this direction? Try seeing the dead end that you have at the end of the road, my dear colleague!
Training by means of short courses in dental sciences is more like a style and fashion statement nowadays. Some are doing so to get away easily with their struggles and the others I believe are tempted to see the display of endlessly designed brochures by others and they try entering in the same blind direction that leads to an end called nowhere. I am not against short courses at all and I am not against such trainings either, but it does disturb me to see that the spill of this fashion is just everywhere.
Take it practically, the moment we finish our degrees we get an urge to get some immediate money and fame and in that push we try training others by aggressively publicizing ourselves, and it’s not just one specialist dentist who does this in today’s scenario, regardless of their experience and expertise everyone wants the same. Result? We produce many more people practicing our specialty and sadly they do not practice it as well as we ourselves know that it should be practiced. The result again, a lesser number of consultations for you and lesser quality of treatment for the patient. There was a time a few years back when the number of dental colleges were on a high rise and when every dental college was and is still offering post graduation seats, which did lead to a lot of repercussions including the saturation of opportunities in dental academics. If I ask anyone of you about this then you may blame the Dental Council of India, but whom will you blame for not promoting your own specialty, for training dentists partially in your specialty and thereby for reducing opportunities in your own specialty! I guess for this, each one of us should blame only ourselves. We do have a lot of good discussion groups online nowadays both on Facebook and WhatsApp and its good to see some excellent display of cases done and some fruitful discussions by the members of the fraternity, but what spoils it is that the moment we get good enough in something then instead of striving for perfection, gaining more experience and benefitting our patients we try looking for opportunities to get some extra benefits from it by starting short training programs. If everyone thinks the same and everyone wants to do the same then just imagine where we will truly reach in not more, but just five years time. And yes everyone is thinking the same.
Can we make it better? Yes, we can. By putting some control and by having strict regulation over it. Where not everyone with a fancy apron and a magnifying loop around the neck who may have just graduated should be designated to train, instead only a few and recognized dental academies should be allowed to. Also, the dental surgeons who receive such pieces of training should have a basic criterion which they should fulfill for getting eligible to learn through such short courses, the purpose of which should solely be the enhancement of the already acquired skills. High time dear colleagues let’s start focusing on the Quality of practice we provide to our patients and the quality of training we give and take our self! Let’s not be the rats racing with each other, let’s follow and do the things which we are good at. Let’s not push our wonderful branch which is touching new heights every day in the west to a dead end in our own country! Wake up dear colleagues, we still can wake up!
Vandita Mishra
You can mail me on vandita5jan@gmail.com
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