UMB dental school (Balt)- experiences

[dontforgettofloss]

I'm a dental hygienist, I was a dental assistant for 14 years before graduating from the University of Maryland Baltimore College of dental surgery. Can I tell you those "private dentists" that you "trust" how do you know you're getting the best quality of work? Who's checking up on them?? At the dental school their work is being checked by Dentists, their work has to be "the best possible for each patients situation" so they will learn to do it right and pass their boards. Once they pass that and are real practicing dentists unless a patient reports a problem to the board they could do crappy work for years with no reprocussions. I have to say, to the one who said "terrible work" 1st sets of dentures suck for EVERY Patient, they don't stay in by some sort of miracle gum magnet, you have to learn to use your tongue and cheeks to keep them in place, and until you've seen the other side of the story how can you judge?? Have you had your first set of dentures yet?? If not, I hope you never have to have them because they're awful. And by all means, get implants.
Additionally in this world of "it's always someone elses fault but my own" when your friend spent countless hours being "convinced to do more dental work" that perhaps she wasn't the best at taking care of her teeth and that was the cause of her more extensive problems? One of the first oaths of all dentists, and I believe Medical doctors is "to first do no harm". And since the dental students don't get paid for all that dental work I hardly believe she was having things done that didn't need to be done.
Back to the question at hand, and hopefully that person had their abcess treated by now, If you have the time to spend, then by all means go to the dental school, you'll probably be safer there then in some hole in the wall dentist office that offers "Cheap dentistry" Even if something goes wrong, there are Post graduate clinics at the school and a huge array of experienced dental professionals that can help.

[Bong477]

Two rules of thumb that apply here...

1) You get what you pay for... or less
2) Something is better than nothing

To suggest that work at the student dental clinic is going to be better than that done by a competent dentist is stupid and untrue. That said, its better than nothing if that's the alternative and its often hard to know if your full price dentist is competent or not until its too late.

[katsinsopo]

I had a tooth pulled from the Dental School, and while it was quite painful, and took forever (i sat in the chair for almost 2 hours)I haven't had any problems with it since. They did tell me I would need surgery to extract my wisdom teeth, but I think I will wait for dental insurance for that. I would trust them for simple, routine procedures, but def. not surgery. Just my opinion.

[gsmarmar]

My parents are in their seventies and have always gone there. I now take my daughter for braces and recommend to anyone anywhere to go. We travel 2 hours but have saved thousands of dollars.