Studying Dentistry in Europe

Hi guys,

I posted this thread to dentistry but here it is in the international section. I m not a new face to this forum and have been on and off for the past 6 years. As from my name above, I am currently studying abroad in 5 a year program and if anybody wants to ask me some questions I will answer those that are appropriate. I was debating whether to post this on the study abroad sub-forum but I felt that more people would see it here.

Over the past few years there has been some misinformation thrown around including people spamming about certain universities and maybe it would be good to clear the air. However , what I say is from my experience and not all countries are the same.

I got good I/GCSE grades (which exceeded the minimum requirements) but unfortunately my grades slipped when I was to 6th form. I decided to study in Poland, why did I decide to study abroad was the fact that I couldn't sit around doing retakes and apply for the following year.

The one thing they don't tell you when you're applying is that some countries require you to take a licensing exam at the end of your studies. The countries that I am aware of that have this are Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary. In Poland you can write this exam in English,However , the translation of these questions have been disputed and currently the deans of the English programs are writing to the licensing board for this to change or to make this exam fair to foreign students. In Bulgaria, I heard this licensing exam is in Bulgarian with no option of writing it in English and Hungary I honestly have no idea. Prague has a licensing exam but people from the foreign program are exempt from taking it (also hearsay).

I have read countless times that you need to speak the language. This is not the case. There are language classes for two year during which the basics and clinical language is discussed and from living in the country for three years, you pick it up enough so the patient understands you.

The cost of the degree is equivalent to that in the UK at just above 9000 pounds per annum but the cost of living is much lower. My dorm costs 135 pounds per month including electricity and water. As for living costs, you can get by on 50 pounds including a couple beers here and there.
You need to buy the books for the courses for example The Art and Science of Operative Dentistry costs over a hundred pounds and you got to take into account you might buy a few of these books in a year (yes you can download pdfs but some people prefer physical copies).

The professors where I study are very ''traditional" and it is very unwise to get on their bad side. Like any other university, you have those good teachers that will go out of their way to accommodate for your class or some that will refuse to do anything. Most lecturers/ professors are not native English speakers and have an accent but at least from my experience there was no problem with understanding what was said in class. So far we had only two native English speaking teaching assistants which was nice. The younger doctors are pretty chill and willing to help and explain during clinics but you are expected to know your stuff !!! They write student evaluation forms after you finish that course (and yes they do get to know you) and they do review students.

At university the most challenging year is the first one, as it is the year they will kick you out if you fail a course. When I was starting these were Anatomy, biophysics and a few people in Chemistry. In total just over 10 people had to leave because of this. Some of those people decided to leave back to their home country and some decided to repeat the year with a couple exemptions from some courses.

I m sorry as I know this isn't everything but I hope it helps some people.

Reply 1

hudzyy

thank you so much for all this information, its a big help especially since you can barely find any proper information from current students online.
i just have a few questions, i am thinking of applying to study dentistry (obviously haha) in one of poland, hungary, slovakia's universities.
but to be honest im not sure which one is best... could you please provide me with your knowledge/ personal experience when you had to come down with this decision.

thank you so much for any help :-)

Reply 2

dentistabroad

Original post by hudzyy

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply but I m busy with school. When it came down to choosing where i want to study it was a bit easier due to having a Polish background. I honestly cannot tell you which country is better because I have only been in Poland. I can say though that i have met one person that transferred form another school to mine and was happy with the decision and during my interview 4 years ago, there was another girl who was in third year and wanted to transfer to my school. It's your decision in the end and if you can, maybe travel to the cities where you want to study ?

I mean i don't believe many people consider Poland due to preconceived views being a communist country etc but it has moved forward a lot since joining the EU. It is no doubt a different culture to England but you adapt fairly quickly.

Studying Dentistry in Europe

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