What are the best things about attending the LECOM School of Dental Medicine?

The clinical experience is exceptional. Faculty that have worked at other schools are astonished at how much we actually get to do in our third and fourth year because there is no patient sharing. Since our fourth year is spent in another location (see below), all the patients in Bradenton are going to the third years which means two things. One: there is never a shortage of patients; no one is sitting around all day because they have no patients. And two: unlike other schools, many students at LECOM get their third and fourth-year competencies done in their third year alone, that’s how much experience we get in our third year. I had a third-year from another school once tell me that what we do in one week is what he gets to do in one month. Also, our clinics are beautiful and we have some of the best equipment. In our third and fourth year, we are assigned to one clinic where we have our own operatories. No chair sharing or claiming ahead of time.

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What are the worst things about attending the LECOM School of Dental Medicine?

PBL (Problem Based Learning). I know this seems like a deal-breaker because our entire curriculum is based around this but most of us have a love-hate relationship with PBL. PBL is learning all of the material for boards in case studies that you go through in a group. You learn concepts through the case study itself and then are assigned 30 chapters from various textbooks to read before the exams, which are each 150 questions in 3 Hours, with 3 of these exams each semester. Many students feel that PBL is an extremely inefficient way to learn and, in the end, although you aren’t having to go through multiple lectures in a day, the amount you learn from PBL isn’t a ton. This is a two-edged sword because on one hand it’s easier to get through the didactic courses because as long as you read the chapters (or at least most of them) you will almost definitely pass; the exams are curved heavily and the questions aren’t terribly difficult. However, it is difficult to make huge changes in your score, meaning that usually if you make ‘A’s on PBL exams you always make ‘A’s and if you make ‘B’s you always make ‘B’s. There seems to be very little movement between exams for people. This is unfortunate if you are not strong at taking PBL exams and have the desire to specialize because if you are a ‘B’ or ‘C’ PBL student you will most assuredly be ranked in the back half of the class because PBL encompasses so many subjects that it makes up the vast majority of your credits. You can make 'A's in every class but if you make ‘B’s in PBL classes, you’re GPA is doomed. If your goal is to not specialize, PBL is fantastic because it takes less time than traditional lectures and the exams are not difficult to pass. Also, if you don’t like group work and can’t communicate well in a group you are going to hate PBL.

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What do students need to know/what do you wish you knew before attending the LECOM School of Dental Medicine?

Spending an additional 50k to go to another school because it’s in a better location or because they have a little bit more clinical experience is foolish and the day you graduate and see how much you owe will be the biggest day of regret you have ever had. Every school will prepare you enough and no school will prepare you perfectly.

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