11/04/2020
Reality of my profession.. D.M.D.
I am an MD but I take offense to the post of my fellow physician belittling the noble profession of Dental Medicine.
I am a faculty of the UE College of Dentistry for 7 years and I have seen the dedication, compassion and the struggles of everyone in that college.
It is a sad reality that in the College of Medicine, our level of understanding of the Art and Science of Dentistry is really poor. Your guidelines, your classifications for cases, your materials are really alien to us. Only when I taught in the College of Dentistry did I learn that the first few years there are similar, almost the same as what we do in our school. However your 3rd and 4th year education is difficult, really difficult.
I remember my student asking me if I will go for Dental course if I have the chance to go back years before. My answer is plain and simple ‘NO’ for the following reasons:
1. It is too expensive.
Our tuition fee when I enrolled in the College of Medicine in 2008 is 89,000+. And that’s it. I only bought 2 books which I thought I really need because I do not have money to buy books. Yes, I don’t! I have a scholarship from Dr Lucio Tan so technically, I do not pay my tuition fee. I only have 70 pesos in my pocket everyday and it is sufficient for my 8am to 5pm class. No expensive instruments to buy. When you rotate in the hospital, the expensive materials are provided by the hospital. I only needed to buy face mask, head cap, and the likes.
In College of Dentistry, you have to buy super expensive materials and equipment even in the first 2 years of Dentistry proper. You know those devices where you mount your cast, those Hu - Friedy instruments that cost a limb! Each student provides his/her own materails and equipment. And in 3rd and 4th year, you have to pay patients so they will come back and you can continue your procedure. The brother of my classmate in Medicine studied Dentistry in UE and he needed 1k plus per day just to get through everything he needed to pay for.
2. Passing and failing does not merely depend in you as a good student but mostly on your patient’s ability to go for follow up.
In many instances, patients try to negotiate asking for money, gadgets, cellphone load, etc. I had a student who is a doctor now who even gave money to his patient so they can celebrate the 7th birthday of the patient and just so she can complete her requirements in Pedodontic rehabilitation. In Medicine, it is easy to pass if you study very well without worrying about failing should patients be lost to follow up.
From my point of view, Dentistry is more difficult than Medicine. I do not have your courage or your passion for this profession. You persevere no matter how difficult your cases are, you repeat, from the very beginning, a procedure if the patient lost to follow up, and you get no credit for the procedure that was not completed even if it was never your fault. You face a new day everyday with smiles in your faces even if you cried your heart out the previous night from desperation, from exasperation, from exhaustion.
Doctors, while it is true that many will be emotional from the post that is currently circulating online, please remember that we cannot go down to the level of people who belittle, insult and undermine your profession. Let us show that we are more professional than many of them. Be responsible in your post, not unlike those who hold a degree and yet type without thinking.
Remember that while you believe that many do not see how important your profession is, there are many of us who value you as Doctors, your contribution to the general health of the society and your passion to serve the people. Even that physician realizes that she or her colleagues cannot treat her condition, otherwise she would not have sought the help of a Dental Medicine practitioner.
I am one with the nation’s Physicians, Dentists, Nurses, and all allied medical professionals in our aim to uplift the health of our people by unity and respecting dignity of every individual across all professions. Only with unity will we be able to defeat any threat that the world faces today.
Thank you Dentists! What will the society be without YOU! ❤️🥰😍