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Patel: Im excited and also kind of nervous because getting out into the real world. A world that includes up to $100,000 in debt for many students, including junior Kelli Hill. Hill: The debt things more (laughs) you know, its kid of in my face right now! Ive had to borrow pretty much everything so I see how much money I owe, I dont see how much money Ill make yet.
Thornton: I think were seeing the tip of a huge iceberg. John Thornton is chairman of UABs pediatric dentistry program. He says as many as 11 percent of rural residents have never been to a dentist. And the U-S Surgeon General estimates 25-million Americans live in areas lacking adequate dental care services. Thornton: Theres a big crisis looming around the corner and I think in the next ten years its going to hit us and were going to be amazed at how severe the shortages are going to be.
Filler: They come out with a lot of debt. Its easier for them to recoup that debt and to make a better living in a private practice world than it is through dental education.
Neiderman: Currently, dentists have in their practice about 2,000 patients. Were they to implement evidence-based methods they could have about 5,000 patients in their practice, treating the patients most in need with the intervention and treat the rest of the patients with the prevention. Double their income and patients would have increased access to care. So it could be a win-win. But even if dentists were willing, insurers would need to reassess how they value dentists time making consultation and preventive procedures more lucrative. An idea some insurers have been slow to embrace. -- Tanya Ott, March 12, 2003. |







| Birmingham -- Students at the University of Alabama Birmingham dental school lab are practicing their drilling and filling on this recent Monday morning. Amit Patel has mastered the drill. Hell graduate this spring and plans to join an established practice in southern Alabama.
Administrators worry that some students are shunning dentistry because of the expense of the schooling, equipment, and establishing a practice. And that, they say, will exacerbate what is already a growing shortage of dentists.
The American Dental Association predicts that 20% of current dentists will retire in the next decade and there wont be enough new dental graduates to fill those gaps. In the 1970s and early 80s the government reimbursed dental schools for every student, but that created too many dentists, so the government stopped the reimbursements. Even if the government were to reinstate that program - few schools could handle more students because there isnt enough faculty to teach them. UAB dental school assistant dean Steven Filler says thats because the average private practice dentists makes $150,000 a year. But to teach dentistry, expect to make just $65,000.
Dental school administrators want the federal government to reinstate the reimbursements so they can raise faculty salaries. They also suggest forgiving the loans of dentists who practice in rural and inner-city communities which are hardest hit by the shortage. Focusing more on the science and prevention could also help, says Richard Neiderman. Hes director of Bostons Forsyth Center for Evidence-based Dentistry. He says if dentists were versed in the latest research in dentistry if, for instance, they routinely treated cavities as infections rather than simply drilling and filling they would increase their efficiency. 