A few questions about specialities

[stk]

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I start dental school in August and would like to know more about specialty programs. Who knows if I am going to specialize after 4 years of dental school, but I am sure it wouldn't hurt to know what they are all about.

1. What are things a dental student needs to do to be a competitive candidate? (Does the student need to do a lot of research and be actively involved in extracurricular activities?)

2. Do ppl in specialty programs work like 100 hours per week like medical residents? I have been trying to find out more about this, but I have failed. I am just curious.

Have a good one y'all!

 

[Daybreaq]

1. Unless things have changed since I was in school (graduated DS in 1993) the most important things are grades and National Board scores. It depends on the program, I suppose. There are also interviews and I'm sure extracurriculars/research helps for those really competitive slots where your competition all have the same grades/test scores.

2. Dental School/Dental Residency is generally the opposite of the Medical School/Medical Residency relationship from what I understand about the Medical Resident's lifestyle. Dental Residency is about 100X better than Dental School in terms of workload and stress. I hated, hated, HATED dental school. Residency was kinda fun actually. Sure there were some stressful moments but nothing like dental school. One exception though is probably Oral Surgery residency since that is pretty much Medical school/Medical Residency combined.