I know that there are many applicants applying to dental school as a back up in case they fail to be admitted to medical school, or applying to dental school because they don’t have the MCAT or grades to apply to med school and are considering dentistry as a second option, as someone who has completed dental school and hated it and ended up becoming a happy physicians afterwards, I would strongly advise you apply to medical school only, be it an MD, DO program, or even an offshore American medical school. You will regret your decision if medicine is your real interest and you are using dentistry as a backup. The worst days in medical school are better than the best days in dental school.
It takes a special person to truly enjoy dentistry. I will repeat this again, dentistry is not for everyone. I would be safe to say that probably more than half of dentists do not actually enjoy their job and would rather be doing something else, but because of the financial and time investment in dental school, loan payback, mortgages, and child rearing costs, cannot afford the time or finances to pursue another profession, and are essentially stuck in a profession that they secretly hate. Why do you think dentists have such a high rate of suicide, it's not annoying patients, its job dissatisfaction. There are many dental student suicides as well, two this past year in fact at prominent schools, both first year students. Now the grand majority of dentists won't admit this to you, and even dental students won't because of pride and saving face, and because no one wants to admit they made the wrong decision and picked the wrong career. And I think it is this perpetual faking of happiness and not being truthful about their profession that continues this cycle of students making uninformed career decisions.
Be truthful to yourself why you are applying to dental school? Do you truly love dentistry and cant see yourself doing anything else? Or are you unsure what you want to do in life, and it seems like a sure bet? Is it because you can't get into medical school and this is a back up to still being a doctor of some sort? Is it because you just want to the status of being a doctor, or your parents want you to be a doctor? You want to be rich? Is it to show your friends and family that you “made it”?
Frankly I think the best candidates for dental school are those who have worked full time as a dental assistant, a hygienist, or those whose parents are dentists and they have seen first hand the positives and negatives of being a dentist, and can make a truly informed decision. I honestly don’t think shadowing a dentist for a few hours a week, going to a summer dental education program or a day event where your pour up one model and drill a few teeth is enough to really gauge if dentistry is something you want to do as a lifelong career. I think the problem with being young, and coming from undergrad is that before graduate school, you have a lot of flexibility in your education, and your choices, and there is no lasting penalty for your decisions. You could have been an English major and still had the possibility of applying to say business school, or pharmacy school etc etc. Basically no matter what you studied in undergrad you still have the possibility of doing and becoming whatever you want; yes it will be easier, and harder for some majors but it's still a possibility. However when you commit to a health professional school, your more locked into that profession, and unlike undergrad it harder to say switch your “major”, or transfer to another school, or drop out of a class if you don’t like what you are studying or don’t like the learning environment. It is also a more costly switch too, and grad schools look at students who leave graduate programs early with suspicion that you are well, a flip flop or a flunker that doesn’t know what you want to do, and that there’s a higher possibility that you might leave their program to which no school wants. So all of you think in the back of your minds that well if I don’t like dental school I will just leave and go to this and that program, it's not going to be an easy path, but it is still doable, just be prepared knowing that your stock went down having just dropped out of a dental program, esp if you will want to apply to medicine afterwards. And it will be a lot harder to pull the trigger and leave a dental program than you think.
Think to yourself if dentistry is something I want to do for the next 20 + years of your life, not the next four, or ten, and will it still be exciting for me. This is the question you should ask yourself before committing into any graduate program. Learning anything that is new is fun initially, and I think it’s why a lot of us end up applying to dental school in the first place because it’s different, and your good at science, and it's like medicine, but not medicine blah blah blah. This was my case. But trust me, that excitement can get old real quick in a few weeks of dental school when you're doing it and studying it 12+ hours a day, or even after a few years of dental school, or working post graduation.
Do not feel pressured to apply to dental school because of your parents, or your siblings or friends who are going to dental school(just because someone else is likes dentistry doesn't mean you will will like it, or they may even be faking it) or because you put all this time and energy into studying for the DAT’s, and tailoring your activities to build a great dental resume and LORs. You are young, and can always start something anew. It does not have to be medicine; think to yourself what it is you foresee yourself enjoying for the long-term future. And if you are still considering dentistry, work in the field for even a year as a dental assistant, to really solidify that it is an interest and not just a passing interest. This small sacrifice of a year can save you future school debt and future of unhappiness if their turn out dentistry is not all you thought it would be.
Now this is information for those who are still committed to applying despite everything I have written, or feel that it doesn’t apply to them, or frankly I am full of **** and will be starting dental school the next cycle, or whenever it happens.
If after the first year of dental school, you are still passionate about it, and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, do anything else. Congratulations, this is a great sign that this is the right career path for you. However, if after the first year, you hated it and would rather be doing something else, I hate to say it, and these words will haunt you but if this becomes you, LEAVE. Get the hell out. Dental school will not get any better the further you go. Don’t listen to that crap about it gets better when you actually start seeing patients. If you have those feelings from early on, it will never get better for you; school will only become a burden. Leave while your student debt is still small (hopefully) and if you happened to be on full scholarship, definitely leave now. Swallow your pride, ignore all the negative things that your family, or your classmates and friends will undoubtedly say about you. Get out literally while you have less debt, and are still young. It will be the best decision you ever made in dental school.
So many students feel pressured to stay due to pride. Their parents have already bragged to everyone who will listen that you will be a dentist, and you already bragged about being a dentist after flooding facebook and instagram with your white coat ceremony and clinic pics. Swallow your pride, and leave. If you realize you don’t like filling and drilling or you don’t like teeth in general, dentistry is not the job for you. And like I said it takes a special person with a special interest to like this field so don't feel shocked it doesn’t click with you; you are more likely to hate it than actually like it. I see so many of my former classmates and young dentists unhappy with dentistry trying to salvage their dental careers by going into dental specialties (lotta pedes, ortho, os) they hope will make them happier, when the truth is it was better they just walk away completely and start afresh. I was one of those ppl, those ortho gunners, that hated the filling and drilling and thought ortho would be my savior. But shadowing at an ortho clinic sucked. Placing bands and brackets was no better than drilling and filling and I had to be honest with myself. Did i really like ortho for what it was, or just the prestige and the paycheck, and looking for a way out. I had to be honest with myself. All the dental specialties involve working with teeth, you will never escape it. Also most dental specialties you have to pay tuition, so don’t bury yourself in even more debt , and more years of school and waste your youth trying to salvage your career and happiness. A lot of people who should have end up applying to med school in the first place go on to apply to 6 year OS programs, once again trying to get as a far away from the dental side and closer to the medical side only to go through a decade of education and get an MD only to end up extracting teeth for a living despite all that education. They would have been better of applying to med school from the beginning, and choosing a medical specialty that better suited their interest, than choosing oral surgery in an attempt to escape dentistry.
So I wont be responding/reading any comments, or private messages regarding this post. I have said all that I have to say regarding this matter, and have told you things I wish I knew or was told before I went to dental school, and insight I acquired completing a DMD program myself. Take the advice, don’t take the advice, take it with a grain of salt, tell me to go you know what myself, I really don’t care. I just hope I can help students make a better decision if dentistry is the right career for them, and ask that you be honest with themselves before they embark on a dental career.
It takes a special person to truly enjoy dentistry. I will repeat this again, dentistry is not for everyone. I would be safe to say that probably more than half of dentists do not actually enjoy their job and would rather be doing something else, but because of the financial and time investment in dental school, loan payback, mortgages, and child rearing costs, cannot afford the time or finances to pursue another profession, and are essentially stuck in a profession that they secretly hate. Why do you think dentists have such a high rate of suicide, it's not annoying patients, its job dissatisfaction. There are many dental student suicides as well, two this past year in fact at prominent schools, both first year students. Now the grand majority of dentists won't admit this to you, and even dental students won't because of pride and saving face, and because no one wants to admit they made the wrong decision and picked the wrong career. And I think it is this perpetual faking of happiness and not being truthful about their profession that continues this cycle of students making uninformed career decisions.
Be truthful to yourself why you are applying to dental school? Do you truly love dentistry and cant see yourself doing anything else? Or are you unsure what you want to do in life, and it seems like a sure bet? Is it because you can't get into medical school and this is a back up to still being a doctor of some sort? Is it because you just want to the status of being a doctor, or your parents want you to be a doctor? You want to be rich? Is it to show your friends and family that you “made it”?
Frankly I think the best candidates for dental school are those who have worked full time as a dental assistant, a hygienist, or those whose parents are dentists and they have seen first hand the positives and negatives of being a dentist, and can make a truly informed decision. I honestly don’t think shadowing a dentist for a few hours a week, going to a summer dental education program or a day event where your pour up one model and drill a few teeth is enough to really gauge if dentistry is something you want to do as a lifelong career. I think the problem with being young, and coming from undergrad is that before graduate school, you have a lot of flexibility in your education, and your choices, and there is no lasting penalty for your decisions. You could have been an English major and still had the possibility of applying to say business school, or pharmacy school etc etc. Basically no matter what you studied in undergrad you still have the possibility of doing and becoming whatever you want; yes it will be easier, and harder for some majors but it's still a possibility. However when you commit to a health professional school, your more locked into that profession, and unlike undergrad it harder to say switch your “major”, or transfer to another school, or drop out of a class if you don’t like what you are studying or don’t like the learning environment. It is also a more costly switch too, and grad schools look at students who leave graduate programs early with suspicion that you are well, a flip flop or a flunker that doesn’t know what you want to do, and that there’s a higher possibility that you might leave their program to which no school wants. So all of you think in the back of your minds that well if I don’t like dental school I will just leave and go to this and that program, it's not going to be an easy path, but it is still doable, just be prepared knowing that your stock went down having just dropped out of a dental program, esp if you will want to apply to medicine afterwards. And it will be a lot harder to pull the trigger and leave a dental program than you think.
Think to yourself if dentistry is something I want to do for the next 20 + years of your life, not the next four, or ten, and will it still be exciting for me. This is the question you should ask yourself before committing into any graduate program. Learning anything that is new is fun initially, and I think it’s why a lot of us end up applying to dental school in the first place because it’s different, and your good at science, and it's like medicine, but not medicine blah blah blah. This was my case. But trust me, that excitement can get old real quick in a few weeks of dental school when you're doing it and studying it 12+ hours a day, or even after a few years of dental school, or working post graduation.
Do not feel pressured to apply to dental school because of your parents, or your siblings or friends who are going to dental school(just because someone else is likes dentistry doesn't mean you will will like it, or they may even be faking it) or because you put all this time and energy into studying for the DAT’s, and tailoring your activities to build a great dental resume and LORs. You are young, and can always start something anew. It does not have to be medicine; think to yourself what it is you foresee yourself enjoying for the long-term future. And if you are still considering dentistry, work in the field for even a year as a dental assistant, to really solidify that it is an interest and not just a passing interest. This small sacrifice of a year can save you future school debt and future of unhappiness if their turn out dentistry is not all you thought it would be.
Now this is information for those who are still committed to applying despite everything I have written, or feel that it doesn’t apply to them, or frankly I am full of **** and will be starting dental school the next cycle, or whenever it happens.
If after the first year of dental school, you are still passionate about it, and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, do anything else. Congratulations, this is a great sign that this is the right career path for you. However, if after the first year, you hated it and would rather be doing something else, I hate to say it, and these words will haunt you but if this becomes you, LEAVE. Get the hell out. Dental school will not get any better the further you go. Don’t listen to that crap about it gets better when you actually start seeing patients. If you have those feelings from early on, it will never get better for you; school will only become a burden. Leave while your student debt is still small (hopefully) and if you happened to be on full scholarship, definitely leave now. Swallow your pride, ignore all the negative things that your family, or your classmates and friends will undoubtedly say about you. Get out literally while you have less debt, and are still young. It will be the best decision you ever made in dental school.
So many students feel pressured to stay due to pride. Their parents have already bragged to everyone who will listen that you will be a dentist, and you already bragged about being a dentist after flooding facebook and instagram with your white coat ceremony and clinic pics. Swallow your pride, and leave. If you realize you don’t like filling and drilling or you don’t like teeth in general, dentistry is not the job for you. And like I said it takes a special person with a special interest to like this field so don't feel shocked it doesn’t click with you; you are more likely to hate it than actually like it. I see so many of my former classmates and young dentists unhappy with dentistry trying to salvage their dental careers by going into dental specialties (lotta pedes, ortho, os) they hope will make them happier, when the truth is it was better they just walk away completely and start afresh. I was one of those ppl, those ortho gunners, that hated the filling and drilling and thought ortho would be my savior. But shadowing at an ortho clinic sucked. Placing bands and brackets was no better than drilling and filling and I had to be honest with myself. Did i really like ortho for what it was, or just the prestige and the paycheck, and looking for a way out. I had to be honest with myself. All the dental specialties involve working with teeth, you will never escape it. Also most dental specialties you have to pay tuition, so don’t bury yourself in even more debt , and more years of school and waste your youth trying to salvage your career and happiness. A lot of people who should have end up applying to med school in the first place go on to apply to 6 year OS programs, once again trying to get as a far away from the dental side and closer to the medical side only to go through a decade of education and get an MD only to end up extracting teeth for a living despite all that education. They would have been better of applying to med school from the beginning, and choosing a medical specialty that better suited their interest, than choosing oral surgery in an attempt to escape dentistry.
So I wont be responding/reading any comments, or private messages regarding this post. I have said all that I have to say regarding this matter, and have told you things I wish I knew or was told before I went to dental school, and insight I acquired completing a DMD program myself. Take the advice, don’t take the advice, take it with a grain of salt, tell me to go you know what myself, I really don’t care. I just hope I can help students make a better decision if dentistry is the right career for them, and ask that you be honest with themselves before they embark on a dental career.
