Harvard 5-year DMD

[The Anhedonia]

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Has anyone heard about this program? It sounds really interesting. It looks like a great way to do some international work as a part of your dental education.

Here is the webpage for it.

any thoughts? has anyone completed the requirements by doing an international project? i'd love to hear.

thanks!

 

[cobalt31]

yea it does seem like a pretty sweet program. first you have to get into harvard though. from my understanding anyone at harvard dental can do it if they want to. you should probably focus on getting in now and figuring out if you want to do it or not later, during your ds1 or ds2 years. the dentist i interviewed with had gone to harvard and done the 5 yr deal, and yea, i forget what she did on her year off (research, probably), but i'm pretty sure you can do whatever you want on your year off as long as it's dentistry or even just research related. you can be very creative.

good luck to you.

 

[Hawkeye7685]

Seems kind of pointless. It would probably be better for you to graduate in four years and go out on your own and volunteer or do your GPR/AEGD and become a higher quality dentist.

 

[JDelicious]

Higher quality dentist? Depends on your definition. If you are thinking of a dentist as being limited to working on patients from 9 to 5, then yeah, go ahead and graduate, start working.

I am 5-year DMD student @ Harvard; my 5th year is being completed at the Harvard School of Public Health. Will I be a higher quality dentist? In my eyes, yes. Having a second degree from Harvard is sweet, especially considering the connections and opportunities that are available to me. I have friends that have spent the year doing research, getting an MBA, Master of Public Policy from the other Harvard schools, too. One student actually spent her year creating a dental clinic for HIV patients in Haiti. It's a tremendous opportunity to get funding to push the envelope for what you can do with your dental career. And if you are considering continuing in that particular line of work after dental school, you've already jumped the gun so to speak. More of the MD students at Harvard med spend an extra year getting another degree or doing research (about 50%). In my incoming class 5/35 students (14%) of the students took advantage of opportunities like this to expand their horizons.

Point said, consider what you want to do after dental school, what your CAREER will be.

 

[Shinpe]

Higher quality dentist? Depends on your definition. If you are thinking of a dentist as being limited to working on patients from 9 to 5, then yeah, go ahead and graduate, start working.

I am 5-year DMD student @ Harvard; my 5th year is being completed at the Harvard School of Public Health. Will I be a higher quality dentist? In my eyes, yes. Having a second degree from Harvard is sweet, especially considering the connections and opportunities that are available to me. I have friends that have spent the year doing research, getting an MBA, Master of Public Policy from the other Harvard schools, too. One student actually spent her year creating a dental clinic for HIV patients in Haiti. It's a tremendous opportunity to get funding to push the envelope for what you can do with your dental career. And if you are considering continuing in that particular line of work after dental school, you've already jumped the gun so to speak. More of the MD students at Harvard med spend an extra year getting another degree or doing research (about 50%). In my incoming class 5/35 students (14%) of the students took advantage of opportunities like this to expand their horizons.

Point said, consider what you want to do after dental school, what your CAREER will be.

I have been looking at the DMD/MBA programs. It seems like Harvard's DMD/MBA basically starts year 1 (you'd have to take some courses at HSB the first year). So does that mean that you have to apply and be admitted to the DMD/MBA programs at the same time. (i.e. I'm applying for fall 2010, which means I'm probably late to get myself in the HSB considering i'd have to study for the GMATs). Some other schools like UCSF and UCLA and Columbia seem to allow you to apply to the MBA program during your first of dentals chool. Is this not an option at Harvard or you can still decide to do the DMD/MBA after being in dental school for a year or two??

 

[Shinpe]

Actually I'm sure now that you'd have to do both simultaneously.
That sucks. It would have been sweet. (Actually I don't think I really have a shot at HBS, aside from the grades, I don't really have to much leadership, which is def required). meh

http://www.hsdm.harvard.edu/asp-html/PDF-files/DMD-MBA_Program.pdf

 

[a1pha]

Actually I'm sure now that you'd have to do both simultaneously.
That sucks. It would have been sweet. (Actually I don't think I really have a shot at HBS, aside from the grades, I don't really have to much leadership, which is def required). meh

http://www.hsdm.harvard.edu/asp-html/PDF-files/DMD-MBA_Program.pdf

There's a lot of flexibility in Harvard programs. You can decide to do the MBA partway through dental school but it would just end up taking longer than 5 years. If you want correct info on this, call the administration office rather than looking at things posted on the website.

 

[Shinpe]

There's a lot of flexibility in Harvard programs. You can decide to do the MBA partway through dental school but it would just end up taking longer than 5 years. If you want correct info on this, call the administration office rather than looking at things posted on the website.

Well in their outline, you'd take 3 courses at HBS 1st year, non 2nd year and 2 3rd year and all 4th year:
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academics/jointdegree/HBS-HSDM/mbadmd.html

Technically, they could probably bump those 3 classes to 2nd year and one could follow the same schedule (unless they'd think that the load would be not ideal). Either way, I'm waaay less likely to be able to get into HBS than HSDM, even though I have numbers and such, I have very little work experience compared to most HBS applicants (one summer internship and private tutoring). And they don't seem to be cutting people from HSDM much slack just because they are already going there according to that pdf. Either way, seems like at this point i have to first hope I'll get into HSDM and take it from there. Looking way too far in the future I guess lol

Thanks for the hint though.

 

[Shinpe]

So you're right. I stopped by their office the day before my interview for D-school and they agreed that their website is misleading and said they were going to call and change it right after I left. On the curriculum on their website, right now in first year it has like 3 classes listed on HBS, but when I showed them that, they were surprised because apparently those 3 classes are in the med school, but they want people who are interested in the MBA to take those. Basically she said right now you can apply your 0th, 1st or 2nd year, but in a year or two, they're going to ask people who are interested to just apply at the end of their second year, which makes ALOT more sense. They also mentioned that the application would just be compiled with all the other apps and not receive any special treatment, although the d-students seemed to think otherwise. Just saying in case anyone is interested lol

 

[laundry]

"better trained dentist" is a very very fluid term. It just depends on what you want to do. The 5 yr program is great if you want to be involved in public health policy, etc. Will you be a better general dentist skill wise, probably not, as you can get much better experience in a GPR program.

 

[The Hammer]

The 5 year plan is great if you are planning on going into public health, education or administration. It is not advantageous if you are planning to enter into private practice. A GPR or AEGD would benefit you much more. Getting an MBA in a year would be great if at some point you want to be an administrator but again if you are entering into private practice it is not that helpful. Most of what you need to know about operating a practice you could learn in basic business and management classes in college.