Chance for Dental after Med School Withdrawal

[saadio]

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I recently withdrew from a DO med school mainly due to academic performance.

I have taken some time and realized that I still want to have a career in healthcare, and that dentistry aligns more with my personality and goals (hands on learning, establishing relationships with patients, able to take part in preventative measures, ability to have my own practice than being a hospital employee). And I wasn’t prepared initially for the rigor and volume of content in med school but honestly my grades improved over time as I changed my study strategies.

I have shadowed my dentist and from my experience I am definitely interested in this field. I have a biology undergrad degree w a 3.7 GPA (3.6 science) but I have yet to take the DAT.

I guess I’m here to ask if it’s worth pursuing this path if I have a med school transcript with a string of WFs (withdrawal - fail) and some WPs (withdrawal-pass). If I was to apply to dental schools would my application be dead on arrival? Additionally my experiences so far havent been dental specific 1000+ hours working as a medical assistant and 2000+ hours working in research (w publication) and 200+ hours volunteering (meals on wheels, hospital). I’m not quite sure what else I could do to strengthen my application besides shadowing.

TLDR: Would I have a chance at dental school with a previous med school withdrawal in your opinion?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Pre Dental Rev]

IIRC on the adea application there is a section that asks if you ever matriculated into med school or any other healthcare school so you're going to have to explain that you went to med school and your academic performance there as well as your resulting withdrawal. What year in med school were you and did you get any grades while in DO school? Because you will have to upload those grades onto your application and if those grades aren't good, it's gonna be a hard fight for you.

I don't really think dental schools are willing to accept a student who dropped out of med school for academic performance. If you dropped out because you realized you prefer being a dentist and not because of grades then I can see it sort of working out, but given that you dropped out because of academic performance issues I don't see a reason why dental schools would want to take the chance with you.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

And I wasn’t prepared initially for the rigor and volume of content in med school

Do you expect dental school to be much better?

Also, do you have any educational debt from undergrad and med school? If so, how much? Are you prepared to potentially add $600,000 or more onto that?

Dropping out of a program because of academics is going to be a significant red flag you have to overcome.

Big Hoss

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

You have a better chance getting into another medical school than getting into dental school (see the new schools that have opened on the MD and DO front), and that is even a little challenging. The two are not the same, and dental curricula are not easier than medical curricula. You like hands-on work? Maybe you've seen the movie Whiplash?



Okay, maybe it won't be like that with your dental preceptor. Not exactly.