ADA.org: Future of Dentistry Full Report

FUTURE OFDENTISTRY

THE TEACHING FACULTY

Faculty Overview

Perhaps the most critical element in ensuring a
strong and excellent dental education system for the
United States is the quality of the system's teaching
faculty. Reports suggest new challenges in the reten-
tion of full-time faculty (FT).
Past dental school retention efforts focused on
preventing faculty losses to competing dental
schools. Today's retention issue, however, centers
on the loss of faculty to more financially attractive
opportunities. Competition today comes from full-
time private practice, often in the geographic region
immediately surrounding the university. Depending
on the dental specialty, income differentials can sig-
nificantly favor practice-based opportunities. A
study by Haden et al. reports that after retirement,
entering private practice is the second most common
reason for full-time faculty separations in United
States schools of dentistry (Haden et al, 2000).
A reliable analysis of faculty characteristics and
trends in dental education is not available. The stud-
ies that are available, especially those longitudinal

studies reporting trends since 1980 or earlier, tend to

ignore the decline in the number of dental schools.

It seems intuitively obvious that the decline in

the number of dental schools, and an even greater

decline in the number of students enrolling in dental

education (6,301 in 1978; 3,979 in 1990), would be

accompanied by some adjustment in the dental edu-

cation workforce. In some respects, the major con-

clusion from the currently available data is that

detailed analyses will be required against which cur-

rent perceptions and anecdotal evidence can be eval-

uated. Figure 6.3 provides a longitudinal series of

the numbers of clinical and basic science full-time

equivalent (FTE) faculty employed by dental

schools. Table 6.6 presents similar data, enrollment

figures, and adds student-to-FTE faculty ratio data

for both the basic and clinical sciences (ADA,

2000). Figure 6.3 and Table 6.6 together indicate that:

u The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) clinical

faculty declined from 1986 to 1994, rose through

1997/98, and has begun to decline again.

u The number of FTE basic science faculty declined

by 322 from 1989/90 to 1998/99.

Dental Education

Source: ADA, Surveys of Predoctoral Dental Educational Institution; and AADS, Surveys of Dental Educators.

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

4,423

1,255

4,300

1,1 73

4,251

1,141

4,25 9

1,103

4,1 81

1,0 75

4,1 65

1,04 9

4,4 76

1,122

4,520

1,114

4,5 79

1,11 7

4,25 8

933

FIGURE 6. 3

Basic Science and Clinical Science Full-Time Equivalent Faculty, 1989/90 to 1998/99

N

U

MB

ER

O

F F

AC

U

LT Y

YEAR

19

8

9 /

90

199

0 /

91

199

1 /

92

199

2 /

93

199

3 /

94

199

4 /

95

199

5 /

96

199

6 /

97

199

7 /

98

199

8 /

99

Basic Science

Clinical Science