I applaud Dr. Michael Glick’s acknowledgement of the shortfalls in dental education ("Dental Education: An Evolving Challenge," JADA 2006;137[7]:940–4). He has, however, failed to include one major area of deficiency. The majority of dental graduates in this country go on to ply their skills in private practice. Woefully little training is provided to engage in the business of dentistry.
Students graduate from dental schools with no understanding of the basic accounting, marketing, finance and resource management skills required to become associates or start practices. This is hardly surprising, since the majority of full-time dental faculties are composed of people with little or no real-world practice experience.
The difficult challenge is recruiting quality people from private practices to the realm of full-time academics. The recent boom in dentistry has made the opportunity cost of leaving the private sector high. The currently employed clinical teaching model must be modified to make it cost-effective for experienced practitioners to join dental faculties.
Most of our graduates leave school adequately prepared to do procedures, but poorly prepared to do the business of dentistry.
