Pursue dentistry in Penang
WE are given only one set of adult teeth to last us a lifetime, so ensuring that our adult teeth last us into our sunset years is crucial. The care practitioners and experts who advise us on the best dental procedures need to be trained properly and absorb all possible knowledge, and this is where specialised higher education institutions play a part.
Established in 2006, the Penang International Dental College (PIDC) is a boutique college offering the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) for those looking to pursue this discipline. It is among Malaysia’s first private dental colleges and specialist dental centres and institutions to offer holistic dental care.
The dental college, which has been fully operational for the past 13 years, offers subsidised dental treatment for the lower socio-economic and underprivileged groups.
The PIDC dental clinic has treated over 100,000 new and repeat patients since its establishment, thus giving its students wide exposure to patients, actual cases and real-world dental treatment.
More than 500 dentists have been trained by PIDC ever since the first batch of students graduated in 2011. PIDC’s alumni have been successful in the field of dentistry and many have spread their wings beyond Malaysia. A fair number of them are currently practising or pursuing their postgraduate studies overseas.
PIDC alumni Dr Brian Chong Weng Hon, who is currently pursuing his postgraduate programme at DClinDent Prosthodontics in the UK, says, “The training at PIDC has given me the required head start in my career. The exposure to the patients at PIDC’s clinic has allowed me to work with confidence on the patients that I treated from my first day of professional employment.”
For those looking to enrol with PIDC – which was awarded the BrandLaureate’s Best Brand in Education – Dental College award in 2016 -- the PIDC BDS is a five-year programme where students pursue their first two years of Basic Sciences subjects at Mahsa University, Bandar Saujana Putra, Selangor, while the remaining three years of Clinical Studies are conducted at PIDC.
To complete their education, PIDC’s students are trained at Penang Hospital (Penang General Hospital) for their Medicine and Surgery subjects.
PIDC obtained full accreditation from the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) in 2011. It was the first private dental college to be given the full five years accreditation by Ministry of Higher Education, MQA and the Malaysian Dental Council in 2013.
MyQuest is a college rating by the Ministry of Education which is reviewed periodically. Since 2013, PIDC has consistently maintained its five-Star MyQuest rating. In 2018, the college achieved the highest six-Star MyQuest rating.
The campus, located in Jalan Bagan Luar, Butterworth, is easily accessible by several public transport points as the Penang Sentral bus station, the ferry terminal, jetty and the train station are all located within a two-kilometre radius from the college. This makes PIDC a convenient choice for many.