[Israeli dental school dropout, a 13-year retrospective survey]

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Higher Education Policy

Background:

• Student attrition in higher education, particularly in professional schools like dentistry, poses challenges for resource allocation and program efficiency.
• Minimizing dropout rates is a key objective for academic institutions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the characteristics and reasons for student dropout at the Hebrew University's School of Dental Medicine.
• To identify factors contributing to attrition and inform potential improvements in admission and program structure.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective study of dental students from 2001 to 2013.
• Data collection involved dental school records and an online questionnaire for dropouts.

Main Results:

• A 29% dropout rate (268 of 925 students) was observed between 2001 and 2013.
• Dropouts had above-average academic achievements.
• Primary reasons for leaving were attraction to other professions (70%), mainly medical school (80%), and lack of interest in dentistry (11%).

Conclusions:

• Dropout was not linked to academic performance but to students pursuing medical studies.
• The current admission process may not effectively identify students lacking long-term commitment to dentistry.
• Restructuring the dental program to admit students after pre-medical studies could potentially reduce dropout rates.