The university course in dentistry becomes six years long.

Il For the new academic year there is an important news: the university course in Dentistry becomes six years long. It is an epochal change regarding the educational path of new dentists which will strongly involve both the students and the teachers. In fact, the addition of the 6th year has the aim to uniform the university courses in Dentistry and in Prostethic Dentistry for the entire Italian territory, and to complete the education above all the clinical one of the students. That change will be translated into a serious effort by the teachers in order to ensure many hours of tutoring in the departments next to the practitioners. Once again dentists working at the university are engaged in many duties: on one side there are the teaching burdens, on the other side there is the service for the health assistance on behalf of the National Health System in the various dentistry departments, lastly and additionally on another side there is also the need to support the new graduating students in order to complete their clinical-operative education. It was already perfectly clear that for our students it is necessary a greater practical training for managing “the dentist’s chair”, in order to help them to become very good professional dentists able to face immediately after having completed their university course – the world of work. It is for that reason that we are glad to welcome the sixth year of the university course in dentistry, but we need to make our political representatives understand the importance of avoiding any indiscriminated cut of resources for the Universities because of the growing amount of duties. Lastly, welcome to the 6th year above all if it is correctly planned, and if it is dedicated to the clinical practice of the students, which will be also useful to supply the new graduated with the right information in order to help them to choose how to continue their post-lauream education in the best possible way, and to give a contribution for reducing the growing number of post-lauream training courses whose quality is often not guaranteed. Cordially and professionally