Do I have a chance in pursuing dental school?

[Lost@Frost]

Currently an M1 at a DO school. I've made a post about this already but I am failing 3 classes and have to remediate them soon. While 3 classes sounds like a lot its less than 10% of what we took this entire year. Honestly the reason I failed the last two classes was because of burnout. I am confident in my ability to do well in graduate school-I was able to pass the majority of my courses fairly well. I havent been in the right mind space lately and I've been questioning whether I want to continue with medicine for some time. I dont find the material that interesting (and yes I do know that for the 1st two years the material is the same) and I dread thinking about residency.

I was considering dentistry before medical school. Had I not been accepted to this school I was actually going to take the DAT and start working towards that. I went straight from undergrad into medical school and tbh I had no experience of what it meant to be a doctor. I literally did not shadow anyone. I like the idea of the hands on aspect of dentistry. Being able to fix something in front of your own eyes. As a DO we have OMM labs and I have found that I enjoyed that the most out of everything I have done so far in medical school for the same reasons. I also like the work-life balance dentistry offers. I didnt realize how much of your life you have to dedicate towards medicine.

I wanted to know if I actually have a chance to get into dental school. Lets say I score a 20+ on the DAT and I spend a year being a dental assistant to gauge interest. If I address the fact that I went into medicine without really knowing it will they think thats a viable reason? I am serious about this. Im not only doing this because Im failing my classes. I have been thinking about this since my 1st semester this just gave me the push to do it.

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[Chicago_predental]

If youve been considering dentistry and think it is the right decision, then you should! Im not sure how the courses will appear on your application, but you can definitely explain in the section where they ask if you were in another professional program and left. As far as explaining you went into medicine without really knowing it, Id refrain from explaining it that way. Rather, id explain it as you didn't find it a good fit for what you and what you want in a profession then elaborate on why dentistry is a good fit for you

 

[Lemillion]

-I think if you have the GPA and test scores then getting into dental school is totally feasible.
-During dental school, there were a few people who were previously in med school before. There was even a guy who went back to dental school right after finishing med school.
-As for explaining your background so far, I think as long as you can explain how you got to developing an interest in dentistry, it would make sense. A lot of people in my class had different professions and later found dentistry. It is all how you frame it to them!

 

[PerioDont]

I agree with the others, you likely do have a chance.

What I really ask you to consider though is whether this is a case of grass is greener syndrome? If they are allowing you to continue in the med school, I would just do that. Medicine is not medical school, esp M1/2.

Best case scenario you would enter dental school as a first year 2-3 years from now. Thats a lot of time and income potential loss. I'd stick with the bird in the hand.

 

[Lost@Frost]

-During dental school, there were a few people who were previously in med school before. There was even a guy who went back to dental school right after finishing med school.
-As for explaining your background so far, I think as long as you can explain how you got to developing an interest in dentistry, it would make sense. A lot of people in my class had different professions and later found dentistry. It is all how you frame it to them!

My concern is the 3 Fs on my transcript from med school. How will they view that? I dont want them to think I only applied to dental school because I failed medical school

 

[Lost@Frost]

I agree with the others, you likely do have a chance.

What I really ask you to consider though is whether this is a case of grass is greener syndrome? If they are allowing you to continue in the med school, I would just do that. Medicine is not medical school, esp M1/2.

Best case scenario you would enter dental school as a first year 2-3 years from now. Thats a lot of time and income potential loss. I'd stick with the bird in the hand.

Eh the potential loss of income isnt that much seeing as I still have to do a residency after med school that would be 3+ years. I just wanted to see if I had a chance before I really started thinking about it. I will be giving it some time and thought.

 

[MLC45]

My concern is the 3 Fs on my transcript from med school. How will they view that? I dont want them to think I only applied to dental school because I failed medical school

What classes did you fail?

 

[deleted903013]

What will your plans be if you drop out of med school and don't get into dental school? You also need to prepare yourself for the debt you'll have to take on on top of your current med school debt.

 

[doc toothache]

Failing courses in one professional school doesn't bode well for doing well in a similar field.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

What’s your student loan balance right now? From what I know, DO schools can be on the pricey side. The dental schools with the lowest barriers to entry are also the ones that have a cost of attendance of $650,000+. Combining your medical school debt with your potential dental school debt could leave you $750,000+ in the hole. All that for a job that’ll start you around $130,000/year. You ready for that nightmare?

Big Hoss

 

[DocStranger]

What’s your student loan balance right now? From what I know, DO schools can be on the pricey side. The dental schools with the lowest barriers to entry are also the ones that have a cost of attendance of $650,000+. Combining your medical school debt with your potential dental school debt could leave you $750,000+ in the hole. All that for a job that’ll start you around $130,000/year. You ready for that nightmare?

Big Hoss

I think you should get your JD and protect us dental students from the debt we build, you seem to really despise the system 😅

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

I think you should get your JD and protect us dental students from the debt we build, you seem to really despise the system 😅

I kind of hope there are some school administrators sitting around secretly plotting Big Hoss’ ultimate demise...

Big Hoss

 

[Soleus715]

No one can adequately advise you about this issue on this forum. NO ONE.

No one knows who you are as a person well enough to know if you will have enough drive and motivation for dentistry and do well in school.
Heck, I'd bet even some friends around you won't be able to help you on that.

Please take some time to reflect personally about why you got burnt out and how you can prevent this in the future regardless of what career you choose.
It seems you're already aware that first 2 yrs of dental school involve similar pre-clinical courses to med school. What will motivate you that you won't get burnt out with the SAME stuff the second time around? (Does the sound of reciting krebs cycle and all the components on a blank sheet of paper still seem interesting to you just because it's dentistry now vs medicine?)

Add on to that the point Big Hoss made about the finances involved. Dentistry right now doesn't even have a good or even average ROI. It's terrible.
The work-life balance you mentioned is only possible for those without gigantic 500k+ loans. We are no longer in the golden age of dentistry, and experienced dentists nowadays do NOT represent the life you will have as a new dentist in 2024+.

I've seen two of my classmates fail out of school. One of which had to repeat a year and still got kicked out in the middle of D3. That's almost 4 years of loans for nothing.

Just trying to be realistic here and prevent yet another miserable dentist. I know too many of my classmates suffering working in Aspen seeing 20-30 pts/day because they can't find a decent job as a new grad and are unwilling to relocate to rural areas in need.
Have you considered trade schools? Some of them will net you 6 figures without all the time and debt involved in healthcare.