DENTAL SCHOOL TRAINS PLASTIC, ORAL SURGEONS

Harvard new has two dental schools, the regular Dental School and the new School of Dental Medicine, established last Spring and destined to replace its older brother as soon as the present second-year class graduates.

Branded by many practitioners allover the country as attempting to create a ruling class of "super-dentists," too proud to fill or pull a tooth, the new school is trying out many new innovations on the nine students who make up its first-year class.

According to Dr. Kurt H. Thoma, professor of Oral Surgery and a key man in the founding of the new school, the course will last for five years, rather than the usual four, and will include the equivalent of four summer courses as well. With over half the time spent in general medical studies. It will lead to the combined M. D. and D.M.D. degree.

Super-Dentist

In one sense, the new school will be training super-dentists, in that it is preparing men for certain specialized opportunities in the dental field which can now only be filled after a long and hopelessly clumsy program of medical and dental study. Among those listed b Thoma in a recent interview are plastic surgery, oral surgery, teaching, and research.

"It must be emphasized," Thoma pointed out, "that the new school is not intended to be a pattern for the educational methods of American dental schools as a whole, but rather to give men training for individual careers of he sort mentioned."

Thoma admitted, however, that the new program will probably lead to a certain revision of the curriculum of many dental schools, notably the cutting down in number of secondary departments into which the instruction is pigeon-holed.

Must Fulfill Public Need

The final reply to those who criticize the new plan on the grounds of "too much education" is given by Leroy M. Miner, Dean of the School, in a recent article in the Dental School Alumni Bulletin.

The plan, he points out, "will succeed or fail according to the way it serves the interests of he pubic, for, after all, dentists and dental schools exist only because they satisfy pubic need. Dentistry, dental schools, and the new plan at Harvard will exist only so long as they fulfill that need."