TCDM Holds White Coat Ceremony for its First Advanced Standing Dental Students

Touro College of Dental Medicine’s Seven Advanced Standing Students Complete an Important Educational Milestone

January 09, 2023
Seven women, the first cohort, in the advanced standing international dentist program stand in their white coats in front of a Touro College of Dental Medicine step-and-repeat.
Touro College of Dental Medicine’s Advanced Standing students in the International Dentist Program received their white coats on December 14, 2022. Participants in the ceremony, which took place at the college in Hawthorne, New York, included the following students (left to right): Priscila Pena Diaz; Drialys Felipe Rodriquez; Nancy Shailesh Doshi; Mozhdeh Nematollahi; Ankita Patel; Harpreet Bajwa; and Lauren Castillo.

On December 14, 2022, seven students in Touro College of Dental Medicine’s Advanced Standing International Dentist Program (IDP), which began this past July, participated in their white coat ceremony, a rite of passage for medical and dental students. During the ceremony, the students, who hail from five different countries, donned their white coats with the assistance of their faculty Clinical Practice Leaders, and recited the Touro College of Dental Medicine oath. The white coat ceremony signifies a dental student’s transition from the midway point of their education into their clinical work. For our Advanced Standing IDP students it marks the additional effort and time they devoted to qualify for TCDM’s program.

Touro College of Dental Medicine’s Advanced Standing International Dentist Program is designed to provide qualified dentists educated outside the United States with the education and experience required to practice dentistry in the U.S. Participants earn a Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) degree following an intensive, two-year didactic and clinical program.

As a student in this program, students begin coursework with advanced standing, starting at the 3rd year of the standard curriculum. After earning their D.D.S. degree, the IDP students are qualified to apply to take their U.S. dental licensure exams.