29 June 2004

White gloves

For the third year out of four, all the final year Dental students at the University of Dundee have passed with flying colours and have presented the Dean with the traditional pair of white gloves.

The white gloves are a dental tradition and are awarded when the whole year passes their exams. It is highly unusual for a school to have such an excellent pass rate on such a difficult course as dentistry.

The Dean of Dentistry, Professor Bill Saunders was delighted to be presented with the white gloves again, a traditional which he is getting used to. He said: "The success of our students and our clean pass rate shows the calibre and commitment of our students and of our teaching staff in the Dental School at the University of Dundee. This group of students have worked hard over the past five years and I wish them all the best for their dental careers."

Presenting the white gloves to the Dean were Lorraine Mitchell (23) from Forfar, Alban Higgins(22) from Stirling, Andrew Jeffrey (24) from Aberdeen, Jonathan McLean (23) from Northern Ireland, and Angela Pilley (23) from Dundee.

Lorraine, Alban and Andrew, Jonathan will be doing their Vocational Training in Forfar, Falkirk, Livingston and Aberdeen respectively next year while Angela does her General Professional Training in Anstruther and Glasgow.

On their course and the success of their year Andrew said: "We are relieved to be finished and excited about moving into professional training next year." Angela said: "There are fifty people in our year so over five years, seeing each other in clinics and lectures every day you get to know your classmates really well. I think we will all miss each other."

The Dental School football team beat the Medical Students in the final of a friendly cup recently which put the icing on the cake for the male dentists. Called the DKchargers, (decay) their victory will make graduation all the sweeter.

By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk