The Dental Council of India has made it mandatory for all new dental colleges to have an attachment to a medical college. The measure is intended to provide dental students an exposure to medicinal subjects and surgery and also to plug the deficiencies in infrastructure in the existing colleges.
“The new order will come into effect from this year following a gazette notification from the Centre. The DCI has taken this decision after a thorough assessment of existing facilities in 297 dental colleges across the country,” DCI president Dibyendu Mazumder told reporters on the sidelines of a national IAOMR PG Convention held on Sunday. The convention was hosted by Sibar Institute of Dental Sciences.
Dr. Mazumder said that the BDS course has eight subjects common to MBBS course, including surgery, and BDS students would have better exposure to clinical training in these subjects if they are attached to a medical college.
Among the other decisions taken by the DCI to improve standards of teaching are, a decision to limit the number of seats in the BDS course to 50 from the existing 100, reintroduce one-year internship for all BDS students, including three months of rural service, and a decision to introduce new course -- Forensic Odonotology (Forensic Dentistry) at the PG level.
The DCI has also refurbished its website and made it interactive.
The website dciindia.org will have details of dental colleges and the details of the staff strength and facilities. The DCI has also made it possible for videoconferencing of seminars and conventions addressed by senior professors across the country.
Executive Committee member, DCI, K. Satheesh Kumar Reddy, spoke.
Keywords: dental colleges, norms, Dental Council of India
It is a good move to reduce the intake from 100 to 50 seats in all colleges across the country, but the government colleges should retain the privilege of having 100 intakes. Attachment to a medical college is mandatory because most dental college students hardly ever see the right kind of general patients. Currently, dental colleges having their own 100 bedded medical hospital or evidence to have an attachment with such hospitals are permitted to conduct the undergraduate course, but unfortunately most of this 100 bedded medical hospitals are farce. More importantly, the Dental Council of India must structure rules and norms with a long vision rather than to change it from time to time leading to more confusion and lack of clarity in most of its amendments to the parent regulations.
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