Dental students may have to do one-year internship

Updated on: Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Dental Council of India, which withdrew mandatory clinical internship for dental students three years ago, is now having a change of heart and may reintroduce the year-long stint into the programme.

The internship was done away with as many students would resort to devious means to procure an internship certificate. In the Council’s internal circles, members have even confessed that they had no way to tell if a student had undergone training or not.

“That handicap prompted us to do away with the internship and introduce a new subject—comprehensive clinical training. Now, we feel the lack of monitoring mechanisms should not come in the way of implementing an internship programme,” said Dr Mansing Pawar, a DCI member.

Of the 297 dental colleges, close to 40 government dental colleges are reeling under considerable shortage of faculty. At most public college hospital campuses, the large patient inflow was shouldered by senior students who used to double up as interns. That stream of students suddenly dried up when the DCI altered the internship rule.

The DCI’s general body met earlier this month to discuss the issue at length and decided to conduct workshops in all states. “We need to take the opinion of all the stakeholders, specially the private colleges and work out the mechanisms for reinstating internships,” added Pawar.

Internships were first introduced in 1992-93 after dental science was recognised as a professional course like medicine and engineering. Old timers said each student was exposed to a comprehensive approach in managing patients. In contrast, the comprehensive clinical training was viewed as a watered-down approach and experts felt bookish training was not sufficient to prepare dentists for the real world.

Dental students may have to do one-year internship

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