Neidle E A
J Dent Educ. 1982 Jun;46(6):336-41.
The unexpectedly high attendance (over five hundred) at the conference and the large number of individuals who had to be turned away provide proof that there is considerable interest in diverse dental careers. Interest is high not only among students and recent graduates: there were members of classes ranging from 1940 to 1985 in attendance. Another conference on the same topic in January in another region of the country also attests to the worthwhile information imparted by such a conference. Finally, it is safe to say that the dental degree has been too narrowly viewed in terms of its career potential, and that dental graduates believed, in the past, that they were prepared to do a very limited range of things. The conference established beyond doubt that it is possible to enter a variety of dentally related careers, either directly from dental school or after some period in private practice, and speakers offered concrete advice on how this might best be done. In a recent article on predoctoral dental education in the 1980s, Dr. Louis Terkla made the basic assumption that, in the future, "schools of dentistry will revise their practice planning courses to orient and prepare graduating students to assume career roles other than as solo practitioners." The Conference on Career Options for the Dental Graduate subserved that goal.
此次会议出人意料地高出席率（超过五百人）以及大量不得不被拒之门外的人证明了人们对多样化牙科职业有着浓厚兴趣。这种兴趣不仅在学生和刚毕业的人中很高：出席者中有1940年至1985年各个班级的成员。该国另一个地区在一月份举办的关于同一主题的另一次会议也证明了此类会议所传达的信息是有价值的。最后，可以肯定地说，人们过去对牙科学位职业潜力的看法过于狭隘，而且牙科毕业生过去认为自己能做的事情非常有限。此次会议无疑证明了，直接从牙科学院毕业或在私人诊所工作一段时间后，有可能进入各种与牙科相关的职业，并且发言者就如何最好地实现这一点提供了具体建议。在最近一篇关于20世纪80年代博士前牙科教育的文章中，路易斯·特尔克拉博士做出了一个基本假设，即“未来，牙科学院将修订其实践规划课程，以使即将毕业的学生能够适应并准备好承担除独立执业者之外的职业角色。”牙科毕业生职业选择会议实现了这一目标。
