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placebooooo t1_jawj69o wrote

Hi op, am a new dentist. I just graduated from Temple dental school this past May. Dental schools are a great option for affordable care, but you have to be patient, as things take multiple visits, and you are looking at 3-4 hours per visit. I don’t know much about penn, but if you were to go to temple, this is how the process would work:

  • You call and let the school know you want to be a patient of the school. They bring you in for a quicker “consult” type visit where they take x-rays and do some screenings. This same visit, you will get assigned a student dentist who will be your primary care provider from there on out.

  • Your second visit will be a 3 hour long comprehensive exam. The student dentist evaluates your gums, teeth for cavities, listens to your concerns and what you’re looking to get out of treatment. This is the appt where you will find out how many cavities you have and the such. They will also go over costs of treatment. If there is time, the student dentist will perform your cleaning that day (if not, then next visit will be your cleaning. Cleanings must be done before any other type of treatment because we need a healthy foundation to be able to fill teeth and do other work).

  • after your cleaning is done, you start fillings/root canals. Root canals take 1-2 visits depending on tooth. Students can fill 1-2 fillings per visit (or more if they’re fast/good enough). If there is emergency treatment that needs to be done (like you’re in pain from a bad tooth that needs to be pulled, those issues will be handled first before anything else).

It’s a process, but my patients were happy when I was there. The students do a great job, and remember that the faculty dentists are always on the floor and check every step of every procedure to make sure every procedure is performed at the standard of care.

Good luck.

Edit: Someone replied to my comment asking about “senior staff member” or something like that. The comment got deleted by auto mod I believe so I can’t see your response nor can I find it (sorry!). Feel free to comment again or dm.

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oksis215 t1_jb0w164 wrote

so if i have a super dead tooth (previously a root canal but all the filling is gone) and a dentist said it was infected and sent me off, would temple still do 3-4 initial appts? ive been calling temples endodontics department but they never answer and theyre the only people accepting state ins

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placebooooo t1_jb0wx7o wrote

So the one thing temple sucks terribly at is phone calls. They’re all over the place.

To answer your question, it depends.

You said the tooth already had a root canal done previously, but now it needs to be redone? Are you going back to your original dentist to continue treatment and just want the root canal done at temple and that’s all?

If the answer to the above questions is “yes” then you need to look up and contact the graduate endodontics department at temple, tell them you have a referral to redo a root canal. They will do it for you in 1-2 visits and bypass all the other appts I mentioned, then they will send you back to your original dentist for further treatment if needed.

If you want to become a patient of the school and want the school to be your primary dental provider, then you will have to go through the whole process. I hope this isn’t too confusing.

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oksis215 t1_jb0xilp wrote

My original dentist did 2 root canals in 8th grade, never got crowns or caps just filling. In 10th grade the filling on the left was gone and tooth was broken, they pulled the tooth.

I went to a different dentist last month (21 now) and they did xrays and said there was an infection on the right side, the fillings all gone. they gave me a paper with 4 referrals of endos accepting medicaid. 3/4 no longer accept it.

Im not sure if theyd pull it or cap it or something, but I dont really have a primary dentist anymore, do you think I should try to become a patient at for Temple?

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placebooooo t1_jb0xy7z wrote

That’s your call. It sounds like you have a lot going on. If you are tight of finances, I would definitely become a temple patient. It’s a process, but if you show motivation to constantly come in for your appts, you can get things done somewhat quicker and with better affordability relative to outside dentists. Good luck

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