The dental curriculum: is is relevant to dental practice?

Does the undergraduate dental curriculum devote the appropriate amount of time to those areas of dentistry that are relevant to today's general dental practice? In a survey of dentists who graduated between 1980 and 1985, it was determined that they felt curriculum offerings in orthodontics, research, endodontics, periodontics, oral surgery, fixed prosthodontics, and occlusion had not been extensive enough. However, graduates also reported that their educational experiences in biochemistry, dental laboratory procedures, gross anatomy, microbiology, and occlusion were too extensive.