‘Hey, how are you? Whatsup? ‘
‘Hey , I am good , I am studying BDS. Whatsup with you?’
‘Ohh BDS , you dint get MBBS at any college?’
This is how the conversation proceeds between a layman and BDS student / a dentist. Why? Why are dentists or dental students underestimated? ? Its all because of the lack of professionalism in dentistry. The present dentists accept the devaluation of their profession, which is the underlying reason of it being carried forward as a trend.
BDS is taken lightly as compared to MBBS. Why? Why is that so? Don’t dentists work hard? Don’t they spend 5 years of their life studying and striving hard to become a dentist? The root of all the criticism acceptance starts from the first year of BDS itself.
On the first day of the first year itself, MBBS subject professors degrade BDS there and then. The students are made to realise that their syllabus is not even half as compared to the MBBS syllabus. Why so? Doesn’t any one notice the extra BDS subjects we study. The ‘N’ number of practical’s we do.
The same scenario of BDS degradation by MBBS professors continues till the 3rd year. The professors too take the BDS students lightly. Their aim is no-where to clear our concepts , but just to teach us off so that we pass. Don’t we need to know our syllabus well? Wont those MBBS subjects be of any help to us?
This is how most of the students pass out. Just by the non – botheration of the professors. Where is professionalism? No where around. The dental college works around the medical college. But no one except the students and the staff know that there is a separate dental college. The dental college is just being tagged along the medical college. Why so? Cant we survive on our own with our own name? We are never given an opportunity to even do so.
The DCI (Dental Council of India) doesn’t even care about such things. The DCI is giving permission to establish more and more colleges every year with more than 20 thousand dentists passing per year. At the end the students just come out with a degree and no knowledge. Then they make up the ‘bad dentists’ whom people criticize around. How does someone become a bad dentist? The college itself doesn’t care about the quality of work the student does. The only aim of every college now –a –days is to get a 100% result. For which they are even ready to pass out people who don’t even know the basics. This is where the professionalism lacks. This is where the DCI comes into role. Or to be said , is supposed to come into role but doesn’t care enough to come into.
According to the statistics in India , the dentist : population ratio is 1:10,000. Which means 1 dentist for 10,000 people. When there are 20,000 passing out each year , where do they go? Why aren’t they available for our people? They all go off abroad for better career opportunities. Who wouldn’t like living and working in a place where their profession is valued , unlike in India. Why doesn’t DCI react to this? Why doesn’t DCI care about it?
In the States the dentist: patient ratio is 1:200. That’s the reason behind their good oral hygiene. If dentistry would have a good professional base in India , even our country would have good smiles , a good oral hygiene. To achieve it we need to start respecting the profession and get professional too.
The problems of non – professionalism starts at the roots and is carried forward. If you nip a bud at the root itself , it wouldn’t grow. The only thing which needs to be done is , to respect our own profession and try helping students become good dentists.
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