Generation next

Professor Rani Bin Samsudin is dean of the University of Sharjah's College of Dentistry, UAE. MED caught up with him to hear how dental schools in the Middle East are raising their game, and why current students are getting the best of both worlds.

Is dentistry a popular choice among the region's school leavers?

In many parts of the world, medicine supercedes dentistry in terms of university applications, but in the Middle East, it is about equal. Dentistry is one of the top choices for high school students when they go on to tertiary education, and the number of applicants is very high.

Do you think it is seen regionally as an appealing profession to enter?

The media has heavily advertised dentistry as a profession. It has portrayed dentists to be not just a technician looking after the tooth, but a physician looking after oral and general health. Of course, one of the most important things is that it is also very lucrative in the Middle East. In the UAE in particular, but really in the whole Middle East, dental schools have no problems in recruitment.

Do you feel the region is producing enough dentists to become truly self-sufficient?

There has been a boom in dental schools and more are being built, but there are still not enough dentists in the region in general - although there are high concentrations of dentists in certain cities.

Do regional graduates struggle to compete with the number of expatriate dentists in the market?

Well, dentistry is a very wide specialty. In countries with a very low number of dentists, they will typically meet basic treatment needs. Where the dentist-to-population ratio is good, dentists are able to diversify their duties. They can provide more sophisticated treatments, higher technology and finer work. It doesn't mean that if there are more dentists, we will saturate the market and there will be less work. If there are more dentists, the services provided will be much broader and the public will benefit from it.

Have you seen any trends in specialties among your students? What are the most popular postgraduate courses?

Certainly there are some areas that students prefer to go into more than others. A large volume of dental graduates prefer to go into the field of prosthodontics and orthodontics, simply because these two areas are very lucrative and there are a lot of patients. A smaller number of graduates go into paediatric dentistry and oral maxillofacial surgery, simply because the training involved is much longer. We also encourage students to go into [research], because it is less developed.

Comparatively little postgraduate education is available locally. Is it common for students to go abroad to train, and decide not to return?

A small number do migrate completely, but most graduates now stay either in the UAE or the Middle East. Many [leave] for higher education and then return home and become specialists in their home country.

Locally, there are more opportunities available because we are diversifying our training programmes and dental education. For example, we offer a programme that is based on the curriculum of the University of Adelaide, in South Australia. It's 100% the Adelaide programme. Therefore, our students are studying and using the infrastructure and logistics of the Middle East, but going through a western European educational philosophy. This will lead to a variation of curriculums and will produce a unique variety of graduate. If all Middle Eastern dental schools were to use the same curriculum, then technology and innovation will be slow. By diversifying, we can survive better, and this will lead to new knowledge, innovation and better use of the appropriate technology.

Do you see many students opting for public sector roles?

We have opportunities for our students to participate in both [private and public] sectors, but dentistry is a very expensive business. In most countries the biggest provider of dental services is the private sector - it is expanding and provides a much wider range of dentistry, compared to the government sector. The government sector is strong, but the private sector is very lucrative. The patient volume is much smaller, there is much more patient-doctor time, and it is very lucrative for the dentist too.

Do you think the cost of a dental degree is prohibitively expensive?

Dentistry is a very expensive programme. It is one of the most expensive programmes in every university. Dentistry doesn't make much profit as a programme, when compared to other courses in a private university, mainly because of the cost of the technology. We are required to invest in these facilities to train the students, but we are also limited in the number of students we can accommodate annually, as dentistry is a very labour intensive programme. The number of faculty members per student is very small - about one faculty member to five students.

Are local universities hoping to tackle the cost?

Firstly, we are looking at new technologies to support us in training a larger number of students. We use computers to train students using virtual technologies so that a bigger number of students can be trained at any one time. We are capitalising on that. Our skills laboratory is equipped with computers so students can observe procedures that are carried out using an intraoral camera at their monitor. We can record practicals, and students can play back whatever they have studied. If the programme becomes less labour intensive, then the cost will be much lower - a large amount of money is spent on staff salaries.

As a teacher, do you feel the focus of dentistry has changed in recent years?

Dentistry in the 70s and 80s was looked at as a technical subject. You have a hole in the tooth; we put in a filling. You lose a tooth; we put a denture in your mouth. Now dentistry has grown from a technical subject into a biological subject. We train students to give a holistic approach to patient care. For us as dental educators, a dentist is a physician and has the role to look after the patient in general.

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM