studying dentistry in france

Hi,

As a former med student who studied in France, I'll share you what I know. Studying dentistry in France takes 6 years. The first year is common for people who want to become a doctor, dentist, pharmacist, physiotherapist or midwife. This year is called PASS (Parcours d'Accès Spécifique Santé) and it is a competitive year as about only 20% of students are admitted and you can't retake the year at the same uni.
I don't know if there's any uni teaching dentistry in English tbh. At my former uni, Université de Lille, they don't. You should check.
(Sorry my English isn't perfect, not a native haha but I hope that what I've said makes sense..)

No, you made complete sense. Thank you. I have a question do we still study at university during the first year (PASS), if so what do we study, as we aren't officially enrolled on the dentistry/medicine course? Also if we don't do well in the PASS, what can we do afterwards? Also in the UK, we get into the dental course by doing over A levels (in France it is called French bac), an Admission exam called the UCAT and interviews, it is a five-year course, with no common first-year. Am I correct in saying that it is much more complex in France? Also although i am French-born with french nationality, i grew up in the UK and did all my studies here. so if i am committed to study in France i would need to be fluent Thank you

Yeah it is much more complex in France (one of the reason why I dropped out after 2 months of studying). During first year you study the basics of medicine as the first year is known as "1st year of medicine". For example you study the basics of : "medical biochemistry" , cellular biology, molecular biology, anatomy, histology, biostatistics, semantics, "social and human science" (idk if it exists in english lol) and pharmacology.

Usually on Fridays, you study a subject that you chose when you were completing your application (which has nothing to do with medicine). You have the choice between 10 subjects such as law, psychology, philosophy, chemistry, biology, You study one of them during this 1st year and must at least end up with 10/20 (50%) to be admitted in case you failed 1st year of medicine (I hope it makes sense haha).

First year is mandatory if you want to study dentistry. What's worse is that at the end of 1st year, the choice among the different courses will depend on your rank, how well you did during the exams..
I really don't know about how the process of international applicants/ non-French qualifications etc.. works as I am a French-born with French nationality and lived my whole life in France. You should contact your chosen uni.
Again sorry if it's not 100% understandable but I tried haha.

In the first year you will learn what you need to pass the final test: PASS. However, most of the people I met who were succesful took private tutoring, imagine 40 hours a week of studying plus tutoring. You see, most people fail on the Physics portion of the exam because although the topics are covered during the year, the questions on the exam are harder on purpose to mantain the 20% quota. Then they make a distinction within the quota for resident and non-resident students. Number of seats for non-residents, regardless of their nationality, it is even smaller. They used to have the same program in Belgium which was scrapped and exchanged for the national exam. The national exam is duable, but you must be extremely strong in Math and Physics, Chem and Bio are more managable. To mantain the quota the Belgium test centers some years make more difficult one sections, the next another. They also have a situational judgement, but that is way easier than the UK version. The thing is that in Belgium you can take the entry exam only twice, after that you need to wait 5 years. In France if you "fail" PASS you can transfer in a course without capped seats and ask some of your exams to be condoned for prior learning, so you do not need to sit the same exam twice. Most french students go on and study something else or go to study privately in Spain, Italy or eastern EU. If you speak French near native speaker I suggest you to make a solid plan. If you really want to study in France, register to study PASS, then register to sit the national exam in Belgium, thirdly apply to medicine in another EU country by studying in English as a back up (Malta, Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuenia, Estonia etc). All of those countries have unis teaching medicine in English, some have state fees other private fees, some have entry tests, some do not. The first option is obviously your preference (France), the second (Belgium) it is in my opinion close enough and allows you study in French or Flemish, the third option is to study somewhere else in English. The other EU country that I know that has undergraduate medicine in French is Romania, but I am not well informed about that program. With a EU degree you can practice anywhere, in France they care about the language, more than were you graduated, since these days even French doctors graduated abroad. Apply to all three options and see who takes you. The belgium unis have free or very cheap preparatory courses for the exams available in person or online starting from June and the exam is in September. If you do not get in France at least you have other options to fall into. Remeber, after graduation if you want to practice in France: Your language skills, your final degree scores and the national "concur" will allow you to get a place in the hospital/town and specialization you like.
I hope it helps

I want to study in Romania and come back to France to practice but will my diploma be recognized the same ? Like I want to study in Spain but it’s 23k and Romania is just 8k. I want to know if there’s going to be a difference between a Spanish and a Romanian diploma in France ?

Romania is a EU member state, thus France will accept their Diploma. When you come back to France you will need to ask equivalance and translation of the Degree before registering to the board, but the process is the same even if you graduate from Finland or Spain because they are all member states but with different languages. The only situation where they do not ask for equivalance is Luxemburg, Belgium and Switzerland, if I am not mistaken, simply because those countries have a similar program and also can issue the Diploma in French. FYI the university of Murcia in Spain: UCAM offers a program in English and it is 14k euros very economic compared to Valencia and Madrid, practically half and these days dentistry in eu is hard to get less than 10k, unless you find a spot in compatitive Poland or sometimes Bulgaria. They are all rising prices. Hope it helps

Thank you so much! I didn’t know about the English program at UCAM I’ll look into it thank you

Hi,
I was wondering if as a UK student who is currently in yr13 apply to dentistry in France. Are there any universities in France where dentistry is taught in English? I know about other opportunities to study dentistry abroad in Eastern European countries but studying in France would be more easily accessible for me as I was born there and have family. there and im more used to the country + tuition fees are low

Hi,
I was wondering if as a UK student who is currently in yr13 apply to dentistry in France. Are there any universities in France where dentistry is taught in English? I know about other opportunities to study dentistry abroad in Eastern European countries but studying in France would be more easily accessible for me as I was born there and have family. there and im more used to the country + tuition fees are low

hiii did you end up applying? I'm a year 12 student who also wants to study dentistry in france