clinical volunteering experience.

[cutema06]

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hey u guys, i have a quick question in regard of clinical volunteering experience. i've heard from my other pre-dental friends saying like if you volunteered for a hospital and wrote it down on your application, the admission committees will call the hospitcal and ask about things. this sounds a bit scary to me, and i'm not even sure if this is true or not. can anyone tell me?
also, if you can't get a letter of recommendation from a dentist that you have volunteered for, what would the admission committee think?
my questions may sound funny 😎 and even unrelated to getting into a dental school but please be generous. 🙂 😛

Thank u,

cutema06

 

[ISU_Steve]

Personally, I don't think they would bother doing that, but why are you worried? Did you screw up at the hospital or something?

As for them being concerned about you not getting a recommendation letter from every dentist you have shadowed with, as long as you didn't spend 60 hrs with a particular dentist and then not get a LOR from them, then I don't think you anything to worry about. I've shadowed with probably 8 or 9 different dentists and I asked one (a periodontist) who I have (so far) spent two days with if I could get an LOR when I go to apply and his response was that I had not spent enough time around his clinic to have "demonstrated enough dedication" that I deserve a letter.

Besides, I don't think if I submitted that many LOR's from just dentists that it would necessarily be a good idea. It could be viewed as overkill I guess. The only LOR I really REALLY want is the one from an endodontist who is an adjunct faculty member at IUSD. That and a couple of LOR's from a general dentist is all I plan on submitting.

 

[Sprgrover]

I have never heard of that, but I can't rule it out either. I doubt every dental school does it. Keep in mind that most schools will receive stacks of applications and interivew dozens of applicants and probably don't do such background checks all the time. Be honest on your application and if they do contact a volunteer site and some person on the other end can't verify your presence there (and comes across as if they could really care less) then I doubt your boat is sunk.