Salmiya

The first batch of dental students in Tromsø exercising periodontal surgery and suturing on the sheep model which had been developed in Kuwait .

Ahmed Shafiq Abdulkareem Al Tameemi (not in the picture), presently 4th-year student at Kuwait University FOD and Chief Editor of the Kuwaiti Dental Students Society (KDSS) Magazine wrote : “Finally, one of the biggest hurdles in my dental education has been passed, literally passed. Next year, I’m off to fourth year, seeking higher education, which, according to the Monthly Dose (all rights reserved) leads to a faster mental decline. Well I’m willing to take the risk. What ever happened in the last three years of my “higher education” already did its damage. What happened exactly that led to my “mental decline”? First of all, entering this University a year earlier started it all. I should have taken that extra course of physics in my school. Then maybe I would have gotten a C+ instead of a D+. Or maybe it was the fact that I really never had anything as hard as a college course. In school, all we had to do is answer all the past papers from 1988 to 2004 and you can guarantee yourself...

Students are different but, in a way, they are similar to handle. I have seen and educated dental students from many countries in the world and I always noticed a great enthusiasm, curiosity, keenness and wholeheartedness. And becoming older, I more and more admire their broad spectrum of interests and capacities of achieving different aims at the same time. Tromsø University is a multicultural place with students from about one hundred nations. The Dental School is brand new and was officially opened in August last year with a rather sober ceremonial act, not really comparable with the colorful inauguration of my previous Dental School or graduation ceremonies at Kuwait University. The students’ clinic is the most modern in the world. Students are in fact online and can solve any problems in real-time evidence-based. Thus, there might be soon a revolution in dental education.

In December 2005 and November 2007 I visited the Islamic Azad University in Khorasgan near Esfahan in Central Iran. I watched some surgical procedures and participated in oral exams of the students. Students were very eager to answer questions in English so that I could easily understand their proficiencies. They did better than my students in Kuwait. No wonder, students in Iran take it very serious with reading the 1400 pages Carranza book in Perio. I gave a seminar for the staff and a lecture for the students. I met the Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry and talked with students and staff of the different departments. Students even remembered me on my second visit. That they had been missing me was, of course, a bit taroof .

Students represent usually the least problem in a new college. Twelve years ago, Kuwait’s Faculty of Dentistry had been founded by Amiri Decree. Together with the Faculty of Pharmacy, FOD was the last Faculty to be established at Kuwait University. An international staff granted, from the very beginning, an extraordinary level of dental education. In fact, in my rather long academic career, I have not seen a place where professional discussions of teachers from all over the world were so impassionate. While everybody of us almost affectionately cared for our ‘guinea pigs’, the first batch of eleven students (ten were female), who graduated in 2005, we became more and more demanding in teaching and training the next batches. Students presented their ongoing cases in weekly seminars and the presence of all teaching staff was mandatory for discussing certain solutions and alternative treatment plans. While heavily animated powerpoint presentations of the students dominated in the beginni...