Looking for a dentist? Try the nearest call centre

Welcome to IT city. In Bangalore, dentists are going 24x7 — not treating patients in their clinics but working in Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) units as call centre employees.

With fewer job opportunities available for dentists, unemployed dentists are often left with no choice but to turn to Bangalore’s numerous BPOs to earn their bread and butter.

“Where are the jobs for dentists?” ask academicians and experts. Dr Usha Mohandas, academician and professor, head of pedodontics and preventive dentistry department at VS Dental College and Hospital, Bangalore says, “This is the latest trend among many young dentists. Since they have no jobs in hand, many are taking refuge at call centres.” Thankfully, “Bangalore has a large number of call centres!” she adds. 

Urban Bangalore has too many dentists already and there is little space for new entrants to set up shop, feel experts. This problem isn’t limited to Bangalore alone; it is increasingly prevalent across India. Almost three-fourth of the total number of dentists are clustered in urban areas, which house only one-fourth of the country’s population.

Despite having a professional degree in Bachelor of Surgery (BDS), Arvind Ravindra is clueless about his future as a dentist. Ravindra is in his early 30s, but isn’t a practicing dentist; worse still, he currently doesn’t have a job in hand.  

“After completing my BDS, I couldn’t find a job,” says Ravindra who then considered opening his own clinic. “But that was an expensive affair. So, I abandoned the idea and joined a BPO. I worked there for a few years and then quit,” he says.

Another call centre employee, Lata Subramaniam (name changed on request) completed her Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) and became a lecturer in a dental college; however, the job didn’t pay much. “Teachers in dental colleges are paid a paltry sum. I was forced to quit that job and join a BPO instead,” says Subramaniam. “Years of hard work studying dentistry has gone in vain,” she adds ruefully.

K Deepak always wanted to be a dentist and put in tremendous effort to reach his goal, but his case isn’t different from many others. “I always wanted to be a dentist. So, I enrolled for a BDS course. But I couldn’t find a job even after five years of agonising search,” says Deepak who has now joined a local call centre. “I have no other option. I am clueless,” he says.

Lack of opportunities for dentists has impacted the course, and experts say there are hardly any takers for BDS today. As a result, the popularity of dentistry as a branch of medical science is fast waning. Between 2007 and 2009, more than half the BDS seats offered by colleges through Common Entrance Test (CET) and Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) counselling have remained vacant. Further, academicians allege that all vacant seats are later sold by colleges as management seats. Each management seat comes at a staggering price of nearly Rs20 lakh.

Rampant corruption and mismanagement has crept into the dental education system and Dental Council of India has failed to rein the system, say educationists .

Currently, Karnataka has 42 dental colleges, two of which are run by the government, while the rest are private institutions. According to Dental Council of India’s senior members, dental education has become a lucrative business that is diluting the quality of dental education.