Diffrent streams of Dentistry

Once you have completed your basic BDS course, you can specialize in any branch of dentistry. Here are some of them.

Orthodontists

These are the guys who are the bane of the teenager’s life; they do corrective work on teeth and jaws.

Periodontists

These are the gums specialists–they deal with the diseases of the gums and the jaw.

Prosthodontists

These ‘sculptors’ remake parts of the teeth, jaw, or face lost due to injury or disease.

Paedodontists

These dentists concern themselves entirely with the problems and treatment of children’s teeth. There’s lots of money to be made here.

Operativedentistsorendodontists

These dentists are again in a very profitable line of work, because they deal with root canal work.

Cosmetic and aesthetic dentists

These dentistsare involved not only in cosmetic or ‘want-based’ dentistry– where there is basically nothing obviously wrong with a patient’s teeth but he or she would like to get some work done on them to make them look better (teeth are too yellowish, smile is too‘gummy’,etc) but also in aesthetic or ‘need-based’ dentistry (where there are obvious aesthetic problems like protruding teeth).

Oralandmaxillofacialsurgeons

They deal with the repair of injuries and rectifying defects to the teeth, jaws and associated structures.

Forensic odontologists

They deal with the collection and evaluation of dental evidence in order to assist law enforcement officers either through the identification of human remains, bite-mark analysis or the examination of oral-facial injuries.

Oralpathologists

These dentists diagnose diseases of the mouth and jaw.

Oralradiologists

They are the X-ray specialists.

Oralsurgeons

Oral surgeons are qualified to operate on the mouth and jaw.

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Becoming a Doctor

How does one become a doctor?

The first step to becoming a doctor is to get admission into a good MBBS course, after class XII, where you should have taken science stream with Physics, Chemistry and Biology. The MBBS course is tough to qualify for and requires four and a half years of rigorous study followed by a year of rotating internship, wherein you shall work for short spells in different departments of a hospital- surgery, gynecology, medicines, paediatrics and so on; so that you get a working knowledge of what these fields are all about.

Since there are only about 20,000 seats available in medical colleges in India every year, of these only about a thousand are in the country’s ‘top rated’ colleges, medical entrance exams are very competitive. The entrance exams to post graduate medical courses, the ones that doctors take when they finish their MBBS and want to specialize, are even more competitive as there are even fewer seats available

Another way to get into these courses is to pay for a seat, this involves fairly large amounts of money and even when you are in it is required of you to pass all your exams in order to earn your degree.

Different entrance exams:
# The All-India Pre-Medical Test (PMT) conducted by CBSE is a route to admission in about 90 Medical colleges in Indian run by the Union governemtn, state governments and municipal authorities (except for a few like AIIMS and AFMC, which have their own entrance exams). In these colleges , 15% of the seats are reserved for applicants who have been successful in this exam (they also have to be from outside the state in which a particular college is located in order to gain admission there). Approximately 2000 ranks are awarded and the allocation of colleges is based on a students rank. The exam tests students in Physics, Chemistry and Biology and is annually held in April to end of early May.
# The state level entrance test for admission to both government and private medical colleges in he state where you live. Most states have their own entrance tests, and you are usually eligible to take the test only if you are domicile in that state. State level medical entrance exams are usually held in March to April.
# Entrance exams are also conducted by top tanking medical colleges such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, the Armed Forces Medical college (AFMC), Pune, JIPMER, Pondicherry, PGI, Chandigarh and CMC, Vellore. All these exmas are normally held in the months of May and June, and require a 50% aggregate in Biology, Physics and Chemistry in XII as eligibility. While these exams are largely based on what you study in XII, there is no telling what can be asked (as some do not have a fixed syllabus). As a result many students take supplementary coaching.

There is no ‘best’ way to prepare for these entrance exams. But we urge you to start planning for them when you are in XI or XII standard, by consulting with your teachers, seniors or any other experts/counselors in this field.

Psychology or Psychiatry?

The following query was received by a student:

What is the difference between psychology and psychiatry? Which one has better career prospects and how do we become one?

 

Sujata (Gurgaon)

 

Reply by Futuremap counsellor:

The basic difference between Psychology and Psychiatry is the degree. You need to study M.B.B.S. and do a specialization in psychiatry to become a psychiatrist and a psychologist needs a post graduation degree and a PH.D in clinical psychology to practice.

 

Being a psychiatrist you can join hospital, have your own clinic or can also join research and development organization.

 

Being a psychologist you can join hospitals, NGOs, corporate, schools, community centers and also can have your own practice.

 

Both the fields have challenging career prospect and scope and depends on the individual’s capabilities and skill sets.