Dental schools expand to help fill need for dentists

Universities are an important factor in making sure communities have a full supply of well trained dental health professionals, and many are currently expanding in order to accommodate a growing number of students interested in the profession.

The University of Iowa, for one, recently began work on an addition to its college of dentistry which should add about 30,000 square feet to its facility, greatly increasing the number of students the program can accommodate.

Dean of the dental school told Radio Iowa that the expansion wouldn’t just benefit the school, it would also benefit the community.

“This really is an investment in the oral health of Iowans for probably the next two to three generations,” he told the news source. “Eighty-percent of Iowa’s dentists are our alumni and we want to be an invaluable resource to the state.”

Job openings for dentists are expected to increase by 16 percent by 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Oral Health Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.