Advice for the big switch

[DDS2MD]

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Hi guys,
I am currently a dental student, and I am in the beginning phase of putting my medical school application together.
Some background on me:

Age: 30, 3rd year dental student, Undergrad GPA, 3.2, Graduate (MS) GPA: 3.6, and Dental school GPA: 3.7. I worked in medical research for several years alongside MDs, and MD-PhDs developing therapeutics for various illnesses. My intitial interest during graduate school was medicine. But after years of persuasion by MDs not to pursue medicine due to various reasons (managed care, Affordable Care Act etc...) I chose to shadow dentists and thought that this could be a great alternative. However, during the first year pathology and medicine courses I started to realize how much I really liked the broad scope of medicine, and became increasingly disinterested in dentistry (and frankly find it boring). Dentistry is an excellent career don't get me wrong. I now realize that career satisfaction is much more important than money, especially when you find little enjoyment in your current field. I really regret how easily I was influenced by my PIs and coworkers and I am sure that I will have to prove beyond a doubt my commitment to medicine to an AdCom. If I could do it all over again, I certainly would.

I know that I am not the only one to post regarding this issue. I would appreciate any advice on how to enhance my chances of admission to medical school.

Also: I do not want to do oral surgery, I do not want a career in dentistry, I am aware of the debt, and I am looking for suggestions to help me craft my application. (I am applying to MD-PhD programs)

I appreciate your (constructive) responses and your time

 

[witzelsucht]

Wow. You rich or something?

Ok so I guess the hardest thing will be convincing them that you aren't just some perpetually dissatisfied guy looking for the next way to continue his perpetual student-dom. After undergrad, grad school, then dental school, there will be concerns that you just either like school a lot or get bored easily. So come up with something meaningful for that. I think it's fairly obvious that with a 3.7 in D-school you probably won't have too much trouble in med school, curriculum-wise.

Part II: are you SUUUURE you wanna do this? I mean, I'm in med school probably headed to EM, so I definitely understand the whole broad pathology blah blah whatever. But consider that in most medical specialties, even FM or EM, you will be seeing many similar issues day in and day out and it will become routine. I've shadowed a lot of EM doctors and it seems like even on pretty interesting cases they're just like "eh...activate the cath lab/neuro/ortho" nothing I can do. And then the ortho/cardio/whatever comes in and they're just like "eh another day of work." The point being that I guess the whole point of medical education is to make everything boring if you are that specialist, so that you can provide care to people who are sick without getting all excited; rather, you know exactly what to do with barely thinking. So the reason I am typing this all is to ask you - do you want med school because its a sexy redhead when all you've had is brunettes? Because once you turn them upside down, they all look the same.

 

[Smurfette]

Moving to PreAllo as OP is premed.

 

[TheWeeIceMan]

So, oral pathology and dental anesthesiology are out too?

I'm not sure a 3.2 is going to cut it for MD/PhD, to be honest, but I bet you could get into a DO school if you can prove you really want to switch to medicine.