Dentistry

[Sense of Duty (Kittens)]

How does one describe what dentists do in GURPS terms? Is dentistry an Expert Skill, substituting for Physician, Physiology, Diagnosis, and Electronics Operation(Medical)? Professional Skill seems appropriate, but Dentists require doctoral degrees to be considered competent, so it would appear to be an IQ H skill. Esoteric Medicine is wholly inappropriate, as tooth care is exoteric enough.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Sense of Duty (Kittens)

Dentists require doctoral degrees to be considered competent

Not in Australia or the Commonwealth generally. Dentists practise with a degree as Bachelor of Dental Surgery. But then, our doctors practise with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery double baccalaureate, not a doctoral degree. You have to do original research work to get a doctorate out here.

[Sense of Duty (Kittens)]

My dentist has a Doctor of Dental Science degree, or D.D.S.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Sense of Duty (Kittens)

My dentist has a Doctor of Dental Science degree, or D.D.S.

From what university?

[Sense of Duty (Kittens)]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

From what university?

I can't recall which one, but I know he's a doctor.

By the way, I am posting from a U.S. perspective.

[Mgellis]

Originally Posted by Sense of Duty (Kittens)

How does one describe what dentists do in GURPS terms? Is dentistry an Expert Skill, substituting for Physician, Physiology, Diagnosis, and Electronics Operation(Medical)? Professional Skill seems appropriate, but Dentists require doctoral degrees to be considered competent, so it would appear to be an IQ H skill. Esoteric Medicine is wholly inappropriate, as tooth care is exoteric enough.

A dentist is simply a very specialized kind of doctor. I would build a dentist using optional specialties (Dental) for Diagnosis, Physician, and Surgery. A dentist may not need Electronics Operation (Medical)...in my experience, it is the dental hygienist (the person who cleans your teeth) who usually takes the X-rays, etc. A dentist probably has a point or two in Physiology, but probably won't need it at a high level.

Mark

P.S. One thing dentists do, by the way, is screen for things like oral cancer, gum disease, etc. So Diagnosis and Physician are definitely required, I think.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Sense of Duty (Kittens)

How does one describe what dentists do in GURPS terms? Is dentistry an Expert Skill, substituting for Physician, Physiology, Diagnosis, and Electronics Operation(Medical)? Professional Skill seems appropriate, but Dentists require doctoral degrees to be considered competent, so it would appear to be an IQ H skill. .

The official way to make professional skills harder is to give them prerequisite skills. For example Physician.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Not in Australia or the Commonwealth generally. Dentists practise with a degree as Bachelor of Dental Surgery. But then, our doctors practise with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery double baccalaureate, not a doctoral degree. You have to do original research work to get a doctorate out here.

In the U.S. a medical degree is not the same thing as a PhD, although both are sometimes referred to as doctoral degrees. Most medical doctors and dentists have baccalaureates as well, followed by additional training at a medical school, but this is not strictly needed. A PhD, OTOH, requires original research, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with medicine, although there are people with both degrees. In GURPS terms, I would say that dentistry is a specialization of diagnosis, surgery, and possibly Physician, although they can be apallingly ignorant in terms of non-dental medicine (which is what a specialization does, IIRC- a large bonus to a narrow subset of a skill, accompanied by a penalty in other areas).

[SimonAce]

To make a dentist I'd use

Diagnosis (possibly Dental Diagnosis if you like variant skills) and Profession (Dentist) as a base. Call it IQ+1 for both (thats 12)

A Dentist might also have whatever the skill for anatomy is (IDHMBWM) first aid and admin (for insurance building) in the US some chemistry courses and various biology ones for pre med to round a template. -- probably a point in each skill

add in Surgery (Dental) for an Oral Surgeon.

With Comfortable Income, +1 IQ and Status 1 (its a respected trade) it comes to about 50pts

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by DAlillama

In the U.S. a medical degree is not the same thing as a PhD, although both are sometimes referred to as doctoral degrees.

The same is true in the Commonwealth. But the difference is different. A Commonwealth MD (or LLD, or DSc) is conferred upon a distinguished researcher for a large corpus of original discovery, and ranks higher than a 'mere' PhD. And a "medical degree" is usually a MB.BS (or some variant) or BMed, not an MD.

We don't give doctorates equivalent to US "professional doctorates"/"first professional degrees". Our MDs are "higher doctorates", equivalent to a DSc, LLD, or DLitt.