California Dental Education
Dentists earn a 4 year degree and then continue on in a doctural program to earn a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) or Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree. Persons wanting to attend dental school usually have attained a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree and so it usually takes more than 8 years to receive dental credentials. Dentists persuing a specialty may be required to attend an extra 1 to 7 years of post-doctoral training.
In California there are 9 specialty areas for dentistry: Endodontics, Oral and Maxiofacial Surgery, Oral and Maxiofacial Radiology, Oral and Maxiofacial Pathology, Othodontics, Pediatric Dentistry, Periodontics, Prosthodontics, Public Health Dentistry.
The state of California encourages high school students interested in dentistry to enroll in chemistry, biology, and algebra classes as preparation for college. For those in college psychology and some business courses are advised. The state of California also requires a bachelor's degree as well as dental college and 2 years additional schooling after dental college for a specialization.
There are several accredited schools of dentistry in California.
- Loma Linda University-School of Dentistry
- University of California, Los Angeles-School of Dentistry
- University of California, San Francisco-School of Dentistry
- Univiersity of the Pacific-School of Dentistry
- University of Southern California-School of Dentistry