Why isn't dentistry taught in med school? Why is there a separate grad school for it?

Question

I think of dentists as (more or less) doctors for the mouth region. Why isn't just a specialty of medicine and therefore taught in med school with all of the other medical specialties?

Answer 1

Wow, this is an angry dentist hatin' bunch. We did take all the med school classes freshman year of dental school. (Anatomy, Histology, Pathology, Biochem) But in addition to all of their classes we also had labs. (operative lab to learn how to do fillings, denture lab, perio lab, etc). So maybe the physicians like to joke we were too dumb to get into med school, but our curriculum was acturally more difficult.
There was enough material taught in dental school to cover 4 full years of classes. Also, the manual dexterity required for dental is pretty tough to learn. We start seeing patients after the 2nd year.of school in addition to the conitnued full class load. Even after the 4th year of school most dental students are still only so -so clinically. Kind of scary when you think these guys and girls are going out into the world. By the way, what do you call the guy who graduates last in his dental school class?

Doctor.

So anyway there's enough crap you have to learn that it really does take all that time. We don't learn all the medical stuff they teach about the rest of the body. That's what the med students start with after they finish their freshman year. Hard to believe that there is that much to learn about the mouth.

Answer 2

society will do whatever they want to inflect pain on people....you can land a man on the moon....do heart transplants....separate twins....but no pain free dentistry. You don't even have a choice to get all your teeth yanked because no dentist wants people to live without pain. Its a secret society of masochists.

Sorry I just had to vent...can't stand Dentists

Answer 3

I heard doctors say dentistry is for those who flunk out of med school. I guess they're the failures of the medical world.

Answer 4

But think of all the different fields of dentristry. (regular, orthodontist, oral surgeon)