About to finish D3 year, uncertainty about specialization.

[luarm12]

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Hi, I am a third year dental student, about to finish up the year and am in my last 2 clinical rotation sessions. I am interested in the fields of oral surgery or orthodontics, but because I have my oral surgery rotation last (in the month of June), I have been really hesitant to commit to taking the entrance examination without knowing if I like extracting teeth or not. I feel as though watching and doing, for me, are entirely different things and unfortunately I just feel as though I have had bad timing in choosing to specialize as a result of this. I know of many D2 students that have already taken entrance exams for specialties at my school, and it seems as though a lot of my 3rd year classmates are getting ready to apply as well.

I'm thinking I may apply to do a GPR to gain some more experience and to decide upon a specialty that I am comfortable with. I'm 1st in my class, I have 2 years of research experience, have a couple year of dental tutoring, and have won around 10 achievement awards and scholarships, so i'm not horribly concerned about getting accepted into a program based on merit, if I can have enough time to study for exams for admissions. However, I have been told by a few friends that oral surgery and orthodontics programs in particular do not like to see students who are not applying straight out of dental school. Is this correct?

Would I still have a shot at getting accepted to one of these programs once I have had a chance to clear my head and make an educated decision? I don't want to miss the boat, but I feel as though a lot of my schoolmates are more ambitious than me, an that me taking time off to do a GPR might come across as though I don't care, or shine a negative light on my application

 

[sc87]

Have you done any externships?

 

[luarm12]

Have you done any externships?

I have not, which I know is not good. This is sort of a new decision for me, specializing in oral surgery. I was thinking, given how far behind I am, I would apply for a GPR and do an externship my D4 year over perhaps over the spring or winter break if that even is a possibility.

 

[sc87]

I would consider going on an externship, it is a great experience even if you decide OMFS is not for you.

 

[luarm12]

I would consider going on an externship, it is a great experience even if you decide OMFS is not for you.

I definitely will be doing one, although I think I may have missed out on getting into one for the summer this year. My school has one that I'm hoping to apply for for spring break or winter break of next year, once I have had a chance to get a bit of experience so maybe I could be a little more hands on. How far in advance do people usually apply for an externship position? No program seems to have explicit dates set.

 

[sc87]

I would start by researching different externships to find ones that interest you and contact the programs individually to inquire about applications timelines.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

I would apply for a GPR and do an externship my D4 year over perhaps over the spring or winter break if that even is a possibility.

You won’t want to wait that long. If you do, you’ll be in the same spot a year from now as you are today — rushing to make a decision as the application season opens. That doesn’t give you much if any time to get your house in order. People will prepare for months for the CBSE for oral surgery and if I’m not mistaken the test is only offered twice a year. It’s not something you just take on a whim. And if you decide on OMFS, because you’ll have gap year of sorts, a year long oral surgery internship might help you out more than a GPR. And have you done much to develop relationships in either department? That’s pretty helpful for good letters of recommendation.

And as a side note, don’t worry about what your classmates are doing. You just do you.

Big Hoss

 

[luarm12]

You won’t want to wait that long. If you do, you’ll be in the same spot a year from now as you are today — rushing to make a decision as the application season opens. That doesn’t give you much if any time to get your house in order. People will prepare for months for the CBSE for oral surgery and if I’m not mistaken the test is only offered twice a year. It’s not something you just take on a whim. And if you decide on OMFS, because you’ll have gap year of sorts, a year long oral surgery internship might help you out more than a GPR. And have you done much to develop relationships in either department? That’s pretty helpful for good letters of recommendation.

And as a side note, don’t worry about what your classmates are doing. You just do you.

Big Hoss

I'm hoping to establish contacts as I go through my 6 week surgery rotation, we don't get to have a lot of exposure prior to our rotation there unfortunately. I have letters of recommendation available to me from outside departments, but I'm not sure how useful that would be if applying to those sorts of programs. Most of my research is education-based.

 

[2TH MVR]

Ortho and OMFS are two different animals. Being 1st in your class holds alot of weight.

 

[Captain Underplants]

To be honest it doesn't sound like you know much about OMFS, simply because your main concern is "what if I don't like pulling teeth" if you have that doubt then it's not for you; not to mention the immensity of the OMS field, it has so much more than just pulling teeth but it seems you haven't done much research on it. It mostly osunds liek you think you should do it just because you're 1st in the class, which is a terrible reason. And the CBSE "Entrance exam" isn't something to scoff at, it's not simply another variant of the ADAT or DAT; and takes month of preparing for. I would really advise you to actually look into what it takes to get into OMS, and what the field involves, and make your decision based off what you think you should because of your class rank.

 

[Rambunctious]

Hi, I am a third year dental student, about to finish up the year and am in my last 2 clinical rotation sessions. I am interested in the fields of oral surgery or orthodontics, but because I have my oral surgery rotation last (in the month of June), I have been really hesitant to commit to taking the entrance examination without knowing if I like extracting teeth or not. I feel as though watching and doing, for me, are entirely different things and unfortunately I just feel as though I have had bad timing in choosing to specialize as a result of this. I know of many D2 students that have already taken entrance exams for specialties at my school, and it seems as though a lot of my 3rd year classmates are getting ready to apply as well.

I'm thinking I may apply to do a GPR to gain some more experience and to decide upon a specialty that I am comfortable with. I'm 1st in my class, I have 2 years of research experience, have a couple year of dental tutoring, and have won around 10 achievement awards and scholarships, so i'm not horribly concerned about getting accepted into a program based on merit, if I can have enough time to study for exams for admissions. However, I have been told by a few friends that oral surgery and orthodontics programs in particular do not like to see students who are not applying straight out of dental school. Is this correct?

Would I still have a shot at getting accepted to one of these programs once I have had a chance to clear my head and make an educated decision? I don't want to miss the boat, but I feel as though a lot of my schoolmates are more ambitious than me, an that me taking time off to do a GPR might come across as though I don't care, or shine a negative light on my application

If you're really 1st in your class, doing a GPR is such a waste of a year (time and money). You can apply to OS or ortho and get in ASAP.

If you are questioning yourself whether you like or dislike extracting teeth, a whole year of GPR isnt' going to persuade you differently. Oral surgery is not just extracting teeth BTW. Extractions are actually the fun part of it, so if you don't really like it then you won't like the other stuff for sure. You would be a better candidate for ortho.

 

[sb.tnh]

I don't really have much advice for you, but just want to say congratulations on being #1 in your class. I know it takes a lot of hard work to achieve that. Your stellar rank will open many doors for you upon graduation.

 

[luarm12]

To be honest it doesn't sound like you know much about OMFS, simply because your main concern is "what if I don't like pulling teeth" if you have that doubt then it's not for you; not to mention the immensity of the OMS field, it has so much more than just pulling teeth but it seems you haven't done much research on it. It mostly osunds liek you think you should do it just because you're 1st in the class, which is a terrible reason. And the CBSE "Entrance exam" isn't something to scoff at, it's not simply another variant of the ADAT or DAT; and takes month of preparing for. I would really advise you to actually look into what it takes to get into OMS, and what the field involves, and make your decision based off what you think you should because of your class rank.

I'm sorry if it came off that way, as though I am aware that CBSE would not be challenging or time consuming. I was just thinking that if I did a GPR program, I would then be able to take a year to really study for it because I don't think I would be able to do it justice with the amount of time I have left before the application deadlines are reached for OMS programs. I know that it would take a lot of hard work. I would be interested in 4 year programs, and from the surgeons that I have shadowed in private practice, about 75% of what I watched was third molar extractions, so I want to ensure that I enjoy working on that sort of thing in addition to other surgical procedures which I won't get to try first hand in our oral surgery rotation at my school.

 

[Captain Underplants]

I'm sorry if it came off that way, as though I am aware that CBSE would not be challenging or time consuming. I was just thinking that if I did a GPR program, I would then be able to take a year to really study for it because I don't think I would be able to do it justice with the amount of time I have left before the application deadlines are reached for OMS programs. I know that it would take a lot of hard work. I would be interested in 4 year programs, and from the surgeons that I have shadowed in private practice, about 75% of what I watched was third molar extractions, so I want to ensure that I enjoy working on that sort of thing in addition to other surgical procedures which I won't get to try first hand in our oral surgery rotation at my school.

No need to apologize, just making sure you're aware what you're getting into, OMFS seems to be one of those fields that people gravitate towards when they're sure it's what they want, so I wanted to make sure you grasped the size of the decision, it truly is 95% removed from general dentistry (short of extractions), another way to look at it is are you prepared to not do another Endo, crown prep, veneer, composite space maintainer, all on 4 etc for the rest of your career? That decision was easy for me.

 

[KillaCam]

I'm sorry if it came off that way, as though I am aware that CBSE would not be challenging or time consuming. I was just thinking that if I did a GPR program, I would then be able to take a year to really study for it because I don't think I would be able to do it justice with the amount of time I have left before the application deadlines are reached for OMS programs. I know that it would take a lot of hard work. I would be interested in 4 year programs, and from the surgeons that I have shadowed in private practice, about 75% of what I watched was third molar extractions, so I want to ensure that I enjoy working on that sort of thing in addition to other surgical procedures which I won't get to try first hand in our oral surgery rotation at my school.

Your logic is that you would study during a GPR in hopes of not getting in for yet another year (2 years now past graduation)....? This is the realistic timeline with your above mentioned plan. You would be wasting 2 years of your life because you cant make a decision. Nut up and get experience early within OMFS to decide if you're going to take this exam soon rather than potentially being a 5th year detnal student and/or an OMFS intern for a year. Lots of work easily avoidable.

Im just going to say that if you are considering Ortho vs OMFS, dont do OMFS then. Completely different working lives and careers.