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Dental surgeons oppose revised BDS programme

NEW DELHI: The decision of the Dental Council of India (DCI) to increase the duration of the BDS course to five years has come in for strong criticism from the Kerala Health Services Dental Surgeons Association.

The Dental Council of India on September 10, 2007 had notified the five-year integrated BDS programme from this academic year. Until now, the curriculum was of four-and-a-half-years plus one year of compulsory internship. Now, the duration has been raised to five years, doing away with the one year compulsory internship.

The undergraduate dental training programme leading to BDS degree shall be of five years with 240 teaching days in each academic year. The revised BDS course regulations 2007 also clarify that enhancement of the course duration would not put any extra financial burden by way of infrastructure and faculty. On the contrary, institutions would be financially benefited by not paying the stipulated monthly internship allowance for one year. However, the Dental Surgeons Association fears that the move would dilute the standards of the fresh dental graduates since internship was an integral part of any medical curriculum.

Incidentally, all other medical courses have one year internship. Dentistry is a surgical discipline which needs internship for enabling the students to master practical skills before taking up patient care, association office-bearers said.

The Dental Council of India’s decision to drop internship from the curriculum will lead to social catastrophe since the doctors passing out without proper practical knowledge can cause harm to patients, the association pointed out. The association said students would have to pay tuition fee for one more year.

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