Aberdeen Dental School Issues Urgent Call For Patients

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Aberdeen Dental School has issued an urgent call for patients to help students to pass their courses.

Students at the university are required to complete a minimum number of practical dental procedures in order to pass their courses. However, a severe shortage of patients is threatening their studies.

Aberdeen Dental School has already sent two letters out to encourage local dentists to refer their patients to the school, but there are not enough volunteers to go round and this means that some students may not carry out enough procedures to pass the course.

The call for volunteers, who receive free dental treatment at the school, comes just weeks after a shortage of patients was revealed at the dental school at Glasgow University.

Representatives from Aberdeen Dental School sent a letter out at the beginning of the year to ask for child patients to visit the school and this was followed up by another letter requesting volunteer patients for crown, denture and dental bridge treatment in February.

The school, which cost more than £17 million, was officially opened by Alex Salmond in 2010 with the aim of improving access to NHS dental care in the region. However, there are fears that the market has become saturated due to the massive increase in the number of dentists working in the area.

Dentist Ross McLelland said that he was increasingly aware that work was “thin on the ground” and believes this is d         ue to the way the programme has been managed, which has contributed to the regional market becoming saturated. Now, there are not enough patients to go round and this must make for worrying times for the students and their tutors.

The British Dental Association in Scotland’s director, Pat Kilpatrick, said that the situation is worrying, as dentists are struggling to get enough patients through the door and therefore it is unlikely that they will be encouraging these patients to visit the dental school.

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