The tie-up between Boston University’s dental school and Dubai Healthcare City is not a quick answer to the GCC’s dental shortage, the institute’s associate dean has warned.
The agreement, which has been touted as a solution to the region’s scarcity of dentists, will bring postgraduate dental training to the UAE for the first time. Industry experts hope that, by bringing specialist training to their doorstep, new graduates will be less likely to train – and stay – abroad.
The size of the classes, however, notes Dr Thomas Kilgore, associate dean at Boston University’s School of Dental Medicine, mean it will be several years before the institute really starts to have an impact.
“The idea of specialty education is that classes have to be small; a maximum of 50,” he said. “In fact, we’re starting out much smaller than that. We’ll be building up to 50 over the course of several years. So initially it will be a dozen to 15 students…and most of the programmes are three years in length.”
Even with the lure of local education, Kilgore notes, there is no guarantee that dentists will choose to stay and practice in the GCC.
“That’s always a danger,” he admits. “It’s just as much a danger that a lot of the students who come to train in Boston don’t want to remain in Boston after they graduate. But if even some of our graduates go to some of the surrounding areas to practice, so much better for the whole region.”
Providing adequate regional training will require a team effort from the region’s dental schools, Kilgore says. Boston University Insitute for Dental Research and Education Dubai has already outlined early plans to provide a consulting service to local universities, he added.
“I don’t think it’s so much that Boston University feels that it’s going to be the hub of dental education. As the population grows, who’s to say that other schools might not develop the expertise, develop the ability to offer specialty programmes?
“If we’re the first in the region, and a University decides to do something similar, we’ve talked about the fact that Boston University would certainly offer themselves as consultants to assist in doing that.”
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