Dentist and assistant at work
Offered by medical schools in the U.S., dental residency programs build upon the education and training gained in dental school. They provide experience-generated insight regarding emergency care, use of anesthesia and other dental practices through hospital rotations and clinic work. Dental residents are paid, but lecture hours added to full-time clinic or hospital commitments can equal a miserly hourly wage and little free time for one to two years.
Residency Requirements
Not all states require dentists to go through residency programs before practicing, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Facilities like University of Virginia Health System, however, design their general dentistry resident courses to increase competency, better equip dentists for a diverse population of patients, understand pain control and meet requirements for states that do require residency programs.
UVHS asks candidates to send dental school transcripts, three letters of recommendation, their scores from the National Dental Board Exam and an essay for evaluation. Necessary in all U.S. states before licensure, the board exam contains clinical and written tests. UVHS, like most facilities, offers one- or two-year programs and has only four slots to fill each year. Other programs, like Rochester Health Systems, accept applicants through a nationwide matching process. First-year residents at Rochester earned $46,978 from 2009 to 2010.
Clinic Work
According to RHS, their residents work eight-hour days at an outpatient dental clinic. Supervised by attending staff, they may do general dental checkups, perform root canals, treat gum disease, apply crowns, extract teeth or provide other dental care. They see adults, children, disabled individuals and patients with complicated medical issues. UVSH offers similar clinic work, with the addition of the Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center, a facility that offers residents extended experience in working with "handicapped and/or mentally compromised children and adolescents." Other residency programs focus on specialties like pediatric dentistry and limit training to that patient population.
Hospital Rotations
Hospital work includes training time (rotations) in emergency medicine, anesthesiology, radiology and clinical laboratory services. Residents spend time learning take accurate patient histories and at Rochester can elect to learn current techniques and advancements in radiology. Dental residents may also assist in surgery performed on accident victims or patients undergoing cleft palate repair.
Lecture Hall
The Rochester program adds 250 hours of coursework to the resident's schedule, including seminars on issues like pain and anxiety control for patients, practice management and evaluation of dental literature, and encourage residents to complete research projects. Residents otherwise round out their workweek by participating in conferences regarding pending cases or listen to guest lecturers specializing in a particular field of dentistry.
Life After Residency
Most dentists, three out of four, open their own practice after obtaining a state license. The median annual income for salaried professionals in general dentistry was $142,870 in 2008 but income varies (likely higher) for those in private practice or specializing in areas like pediatric dentistry, according to the BLS.
Tags: residency programs, clinic work, Dental residents, dental school, general dentistry, like pediatric