Dental Hygienist to Dentist?

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tina

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Does anyone know of dental hygienists applying to dental school and becoming dentists?

I recently changed my major from nursing to pre-dental. I already completed all of the prerequisites for nursing and they happen to be the same prerequisites as for dental hygiene. I was thinking I should go through the dental hygiene program, get a BS in Chemistry, and apply for dental school. I know this will take a while... is this too much?

Should I just skip the dental hygiene program and go straight for my Chem degree , then apply for dental school? The thing is I thought the dental hygiene experience would be great when i apply to dental school.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this and if you know of anyone that has done this~

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there are a few hygienists in my class...as of now, it seems that they have an advantage over the rest of us because they have dental background...but they are also in hygiene DEBT in addition to the dental school debt..and i met a girl during orientation who is just starting the hygiene program and has full intentions of going to dental school afterwards. so, apparently it is not all that uncommon.
 
It is perfectly fine for a hygienist to go to dental school. The ones in my class did very well. I think admission committees think favorably on hygienist admission. They like people with dental experience. If you are unsure of your abilities you always have a backup that pays well. You may be more relaxed with your dental experience and knowing that you've can do hygiene if you have to. You may want to look into how much you have to practice to keep your license current. (#hours per year). It is a royal pain to retake your clinical board exams. Also one of my classmates was a nurse. He worked weekend shifts at the hospital. I think hygienist is a much easier career than nurse. Nurses have to put up with hospital administraters, doctors that think they know everything, pushy families and life and death. Hygienists only have to put up with one egomanic dentist and the life and death of teeth.
It's great to have a backup plan. Stuff happens. I was glad to be able to use part of my undergraduate training (Biomedical Engineering) during hard times.
By the way chemistry is a good major for dental school. I don't understand how it will take you much longer ( maybe one more year) to get RDH and B.S. Chemistry compared to just B.S. Chemistry.

Jon
 
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The dental hygiene program is 2 years long with at least 15 units each semester... thats why it would take me longer to get my BS. By the time I am done with the program, I could have gotten my BS degree already. Anyways, I decided that I am going to do the RDH program first though.

Thank you both for replying to me with the info. It really helped. =)
 
Tina,

It sounds like you've already made up your mind, but I just wanted to reinterate what was said. There are 2 hygenists in my dental class, and they definatly have an easier time with the "dental" part of things, although instructors are a lot harder on the predoctoral students than they are on the hygiene students. (we all take the "same" oral anatomy class first quarter/1st year - although there are split elements for the lab - dental students do wax ups, etc, and I'm not really sure what the hygiene students do then - they do have several extra recitation periods per week, though). My dentist at home (recently out of school) said he wished he'd done his undergrad in hygiene b/c then he could have worked during dental school and made really decent money for his time.

Anyway - Good Luck!!!
 
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