Study of overall cost of the general practitioner's doctorate degree course in dentistry at Shaheed Beheshti Dental School for the year 1382-1383

Optimum utilization of human and financial resources is one of the most important concerns of management of any institutions and educational institutions are no exception to this rule. The aim of this study was two fold. Firstly, to obtain an estimate of the average annual cost for training general practitioner's dentistry students for the year 1382-1383. Secondly, to investigate the main contributing factors to this overall cost and subsequently to suggest guidelines for reduction of this overall cost without affecting the quality and standard of the course. Methods & Materials: In this descriptive and applied study a population consisting of all the general practitioner dental students in the year 1382-1383 has been considered. A check list of items for expenses resulting indirectly from the activities of students and the equipments used for this purpose was prepared. Similarly a check list of items was prepared for equipments used by students and also expenses arising directly as a result of student activities. To calculate the overall cost the costs due to maintenance, depreciation and administration was added to the direct and indirect expenses. To calculate the direct and indirect expenses arising from the activities of the students the sessions and also cost of materials used were estimated. The administration cost was calculated as the sum of contributions from educational planning, research planning, library, sport centers, students welfare, internet facilities, EDC, cultural and political promotion fairs and development of university's communal area. The cost of depreciation was estimated per student as the sum of contributions due to the depreciation of dental school buildings, administration buildings, dentistry equipments and goods transportation vehicles. According to the data gathered in this study the overall annual cost for the general practitioner doctorate degree in dentistry are as follows: 23/647/917 for the first year, 23/829/083 for the second year, 35/267/276 for the third year, 53/126/533 for the fourth year, 48/409/587 for the fifth year and 36/762/048 for the sixth year. Overal cost of general practitioner's doctorate degree course in dentistry at Shaheed Beheshti University Dental School is 221/050/474 Rials.