Hyderabad: The Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course is losing its sheen by every passing year. Students are shying away from pursuing the course and are instead preferring to make multiple attempts to secure a MBBS seat. Last year even the convener quota seats were not filled in Telangana.
According to Dr K. Mahendranath Reddy, president, AP State Dental Council (functioning for both Telugu states), unplanned mushrooming of dental colleges, especially over the last decade, has hit the BDS course hard.
“At present there are 310 medical colleges offering BDS course across the country from which hundreds of BDS graduates are passing out every year. If we take the case of Telangana, the scope for government jobs is almost nil, while chances being limited in the private sector. It boils down to setting up own clinics and there are plenty of them in cities and even tier-2 cities. To set up a new clinic (which involves a lot of investment) and sustain among the existing competition is difficult,” he said.
Dr Reddy added that while there were many fresh BDS graduates, dental awareness was just around 15 per cent even in cities.
“If we conduct a survey on whether people have been to a hospital for some health problem, 100 per cent will reply yes. But when the same people are asked whether they have been to a dental clinic, nearly 85 per cent will say that they have never stepped into a dental clinic in their life,” he said.
Only if dental awareness is doubled or increased to 40 per cent can fresh BDS graduates make a living, Dr Reddy stressed.
Dental stats
An MBBS graduate can do MD or MS with some specialisation and make a mark in the face of completion, but the same does not apply to BDS students who even complete MDS.
A practicing doctor stated that there were five dental clinics in the Kachiguda area alone. “Everyone wants to be in Hyderabad and set up their own clinic. Hence the saturation. Nobody is willing to go to the districts or even to mandal headquarters,” he said.
