Hello!

    Does anybody know how easy it is for a graduate of a Canadian Dental
school  (University of Toronto) to become a dentist in the United States,
assuming they are a US citizen?   The question is really whether it's a huge
hassle to be educated in a foreign country and whether there are
requirements such as the bar exams that lawyers have to go through in each
state they practice in, etc ...

    Any information or pointers would be appreciated.

    mark.

Louis

REPLY:

Hey Louis!

There is a joke in here somewhere ........ but I think I'll decline anyway
......

Cheers,

Joel

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Louis

I would assume that individual states have a test to write after you knew
where you wanted to go.

John

See what I get for sitting on my but. I used to qualify with work experience
alone. Then I went back to school and got formally educated twice in dental.
Been legally doing the clinical and lab for removable for over a decade, but
the way the law is written, I do not qualify for supervising my own lab work
for over a decade. Just another fine example of professional prejudices. Go
figure....

Roy

Some of the Individuals that are currently licenced had no formal education,
they received practical work experience augmented by on the job training. I
do not believe that any true "grandfathering" actually occurred, I think
that when the original laws were created the process for registration (
licensing) required that proficiency be demonstrated through a practical
"exam".

You have to remember Elizzy, that in the grand scheme of things Dentistry is
a young profession. The dentists used to do their own lab work, then the
technician evolved from that for 2 reasons; proficiency from specialization
and the resulting economics benefits. Much the same for the hygienists. As a
matter of fact most of health care has followed similar patterns over the
last century or so.

Lief Solberg writes in "Robert E. Rakel's textbook of Family Practice"
(1978):
    Physicians today make up only 1 of 12 workers in health care, compared
with two of three in 1900.
    Throughout history, however, healers have employed apprentices, helpers,
ant the patient's family members. The medicine man (singer) in traditional
Navaho Indian culture makes extensive use of assistants as well as the
patient's family and friends in the ceremonial rituals so important to his
healing practices. Similarly, the American colonial physician often had an
apprentice whose duties included gathering herbs, collecting bills,
delivering medicines, and performing bleeding (not necessarily in that
order).
    Only in the last century has the concept of physician come to mean a
healer with unique power and control over health care. According to medical
sociologist Freidson (1973), most societies have had people with special
healing knowledge. They just have not usually had the power to control and
limit the effort of other health care workers to the degree seen in Western
Medicine in the twentieth century.

Our generation will see many health care professions break free from the
"power and control" of Western Medicine. Dentistry did it, bringing a
portion of that "power and control". Not easy if you check up on the
history, Harvard Medical School did not want to set up a program for
dentistry when it was first approached. Now dentistry has a whole slew of
specializations and along with that there is infighting on maintaining
"power and control". Protection of the public has been always held in the
fore front, but I feel that economic self preservation also plays a large
part. Given another century or so their will be many more subspecialties,
power and control will only play a small role (unless of course you want to
consider the HMO's and Insurance) professional prejudices will be minimized,
the public will still be protected while benefiting from the changes.

Roy
Stepping off the soap box.