'Dental glut' sparks call to cap university graduates

[pi]

http://www.theage.com.au/national/dental-glut-sparks-call-to-cap-university-graduates-20130111-2clhp.html

Thoughts on the issue? :/ (not the article, that's just a source for info)

[Special At Specialist]

People have a right to study whatever course they want. However, they should also be informed of their employment opportunities prior to enrolling in the course. I think it should be up to the discretion of the university to decide how many applicants they will accept. The top universities will naturally only choose the top students in order to maintain their reputation, since they care about what percentage of their students find employment x years after graduating, so if people only enrol in the top universities, then the problem should sort itself out.

[abeybaby]

i dont see anything wrong with the article? the same issue happened to pharmacy, the award rate for pharmacists from june 2012 is $22.93. I'd hate to see another well respected profession decline so much from oversupply

[pi]

I feel it is very irresponsible for unis to let this happen for dent (and med and pharm before it). These people are virtually unemployable in other fields of work as their qualification is so specialised :/

(I guess why I posted up this article is because I didn't know this was happening in dent too and this article had loads of simple info, just a stem for discussion on dent I guess)

[abeybaby]

oh i thought you meant that there was some crazy nut talking rubbish

[pi]

Oh, woops haha. Should have made that more clear :O Will edit post haha

[pi]

Releavt from Insight, focus on problems in dental care: http://www.sbs.com.au/insight/episode/overview/21/Pulling-Teeth

[Hancock]

It's not really removing their 'right' to study a course they wish to. It's all about supply and demand. If they cap the graduates at 460, the Clearly-in's will shoot up, but that is just due to the tertiary entrance system, not the revoking of someone's right to participate in the course.

Metaphor time: Just because someone gets <98 and wants to do Law at Monash, has their 'right' to study law been taking away?

I never agreed with the university cap removal. Especially for some professional courses such as med, pharm and dent.

[Graphite]

I hope something is going to be done about it, intakes tend to be increasing every year and this problem is only going to worsen for the coming years at least. Some cohorts have over 100 students already, imagine the number of graduates nation wide.

[slothpomba]

Good Article, it touches many other issues in Higher Ed (perhaps for another post).

I have mixed feelings. It is understandable but misguided.

They want young dentists to be able to get jobs. I think everyone does. The problem is they want to achieve it by running a legislative protection racket. They want to guarantee dentists get jobs by using the laws of this country to put a hard limit on how many people can become dentists in the first place.

It's clever, it’s supply side. They are reducing intake, they are not denying those who are already dentists but denying people the chance to even become one and aim for a job. Imagine if we attempted to choke the number of workers in any other industry - Bakers, Construction Workers, Accountants or Musicians. It seems bizarre. It boils down to the dentists wanting special treatment, should we give it to them?

460 is a suspiciously round number. They put in all kinds of statistics and came out with exactly that?

One of the reasons centrally planned economies (e.g. Soviet Union) fail is because there is a problem with a central body planning certain things out. Often, they do a worse job than if you left the market alone. In setting the supposedly scientifically rigorous digit of 460, how can we be sure we aren't sowing the seeds of a future shortage or glut?

I think it's nearing a kind of entitlement. We're uni graduates, we're dentists, we shouldn't have unemployment like other professions! In the 1960s, only 3% of people were university graduates. It might of made sense then but the time of a closed shop of privilege and entitlement has now long passed.

( Not to say that i dont think there are problems. Not an expert on this issue, i dont know everything about it, open to having my mind changed. There are many things i left out, my posts can get long. There is more justification and meat to it than this but probably better suited to a thread on univeristy/jobs/caps in general)

[BoredSatan]

If you look at the article it mentions the unis that have opened Dental courses including Latrobe. What it doesn't mention is the fact that these unis are based in rural areas in the hope of boosting Dental Professionals in the rural field which at the moment is in undersupply.

Although I agree that there is an oversupply in metropolitan areas, the article doesnt mention anything regarding what those unis were planning when they opened their dental school

[Graphite]

That is true, but how many students attending rural dental schools are from metro areas and so would likely return to metro areas?

[Graphite]

Good Article, it touches many other issues in Higher Ed (perhaps for another post).

I have mixed feelings. It is understandable but misguided.

They want young dentists to be able to get jobs. I think everyone does. The problem is they want to achieve it by running a legislative protection racket. They want to guarantee dentists get jobs by using the laws of this country to put a hard limit on how many people can become dentists in the first place.

It's clever, it’s supply side. They are reducing intake, they are not denying those who are already dentists but denying people the chance to even become one and aim for a job. Imagine if we attempted to choke the number of workers in any other industry - Bakers, Construction Workers, Accountants or Musicians. It seems bizarre. It boils down to the dentists wanting special treatment, should we give it to them?

460 is a suspiciously round number. They put in all kinds of statistics and came out with exactly that?

One of the reasons centrally planned economies (e.g. Soviet Union) fail is because there is a problem with a central body planning certain things out. Often, they do a worse job than if you left the market alone. In setting the supposedly scientifically rigorous digit of 460, how can we be sure we aren't sowing the seeds of a future shortage or glut?

I think it's nearing a kind of entitlement. We're uni graduates, we're dentists, we shouldn't have unemployment like other professions! In the 1960s, only 3% of people were university graduates. It might of made sense then but the time of a closed shop of privilege and entitlement has now long passed.

( Not to say that i dont think there are problems. Not an expert on this issue, i dont know everything about it, open to having my mind changed. There are many things i left out, my posts can get long. There is more justification and meat to it than this but probably better suited to a thread on univeristy/jobs/caps in general)

Well, if there is a severe over supply, then what's the point of allowing everyone to become dentists when they can't work as one?
I don't agree that just leaving things as it is would be any good as you are aware of the situation with pharmacy.
Of course, when making changes there may be risks of consequences, but I would assume the number they have calculated would ensure that there won't be any severe shortage.

[Fyrefly]

I think this is more about dentists protecting their ridiculous and sizeable income more than anything.

Economically speaking, a cap on uni grads would forcibly and artificially limit the supply of dentists, which would keep current dentists from having to offer patients more competitive rates for dental care. Further, if a cap were introduced, there would exist the adverse impact of an increasingly inadequate supply of dental care as both current dentists retire and Australia's population continues to grow.

To put it in perspective: IN AUSTRALIA, DENTISTS EARN MORE THAN DOCTORS.

I work as a medical receptionist, and so I'm aware of the salary of the doctors I work with.
I work with doctors who want their children to become dentists instead of doctors because of the higher income and better conditions (a dentist can close at 5pm, hospitals are open 24/7).

As a comparision, in Japan there is a large number of dentists (a level that Australian dentists would deem "oversupply"). This means that receiving dental treatment is much more affordable than in Australia, because Japanese dentists must offer more competitive rates. Basic dental is also included in the Japanese version of Medicare.

In 2010, the average annual salary of a dentist:

• Japan $72,750 (5,820,000¥ at 2010 exchange rate)
• Melbourne $97,500
• Adelaide $125,000
• Brisbane $125,000
• Sydney $150,000

TL;DR: Australian dentists are just trying to protect their inflated incomes and a cap would not be of benefit to Australia.

[Graphite]

Interesting how Melbourne dentists earn the least on average. I wonder why?
When you refer to doctors earning less in general, what type are you referring to? GPs, surgeons, consultants?