I am a premed thinking about dentistry. What ECs I should be doing?

[libraryismyhome]

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I have been premed for 8 years since high school sophomore year, and now I am thinking about dentistry. I would like to know what ECs I should be doing in order to be a competitive applicant.

School: Top 50 state university
Major: Biochemistry
GPA: 3.72 sGPA, 3.76 cGPA
(1 W in non-prereq and 1 C+ in prereq during freshman year)
upward trend: 3.61 Freshman, 3.68 sophomore, 3.74 junior, 3.97 senior
Summa Cum Laude

Volunteering:
1. Medical: total 500+ hours since high school
(1) Large Hospital: ER, ER minor care, OR, Surgical center, Radiology, Dialysis, International health service.
(2) Homeless Medical Clinic: 3 years
(3) Hospice: 1 year
(4) Nursing Home: 1 year
(5) Medical Mission trip to Ecuador

2. Non-Medical
(1) Big Brothers and Big Sisters (1 year)
(2) Weekend School Teacher (6 months)
(3) short term volunteerism through pre-health club (90 hours)

Leadership: vice president of martial art club (1 year)

Research:
(1) 6 months in Entomology, just doing PCR, SDS, and Southern blotting
(2) 2.5 years in Pharmacology, 2nd author pub, poster, and senior thesis
(3) Currently working as a clinical research assistant under the chairman of Neurology Department in UF, attempting to design my own study by writing protocol and publish a paper as the first author

Shadowing: Shadowed ER, ENT, Neurologist, Family Practitioner, Pediatrician, and Internist (total 70 hours)

LORs: 1 dean (strong)
1 former dean (strong)
1 p-chem prof (medium)
1 non-science faculty (medium)
1 writing instructor (strong)

(1) I am prepared to read that all my hours of medical volunteering would go into trash, if I choose dentistry. This would be necessary sacrifice I would need to make in order to change my path. so please tell me the truth.
(2) How many hours of volunteering/shadowing I should be doing in dentistry in order to be a competitive applicant?
(3) Will my nonmedical volunteering, research and other ECs help my application?
(4) What else I should be doing in order to be a competitive applicant?
(5) Are my current research in Neurology and possible first author publication are going to become useless?

 

[bing12]

with your gpa and sgpa, you are already a very competitive applicants, especially considering you have a tough major.

You should get a MIN of 50-100 hours of shadowing. schools requirements vary, You would be very safe with a 100, and prob fine with 50-60.
Any type of research would help.
Neurology should be mentioned, it is a relevant specialty.
Do very well on the DAT ( this is what else you should be doing).

 

[hail2pitt]

x

 

[libraryismyhome]

with your gpa and sgpa, you are already a very competitive applicants, especially considering you have a tough major.

You should get a MIN of 50-100 hours of shadowing. schools requirements vary, You would be very safe with a 100, and prob fine with 50-60.
Any type of research would help.
Neurology should be mentioned, it is a relevant specialty.
Do very well on the DAT ( this is what else you should be doing).

thanks alot for the reply. It's very intriguing to read that neurology would be rather helpful. So if I culminate in a first author pub, will it help? I was afraid to talk about it cause adcoms would think that I am too intimate with medicine.

ohhh I just remembered one more thing. Some schools have microbio as one of their prereqs or requirements? cause i did not take microbio.

 

[bing12]

you can use your experience in medicine and twist it in a positive way. being involved in the field, and understanding that it was not for you.
if they have microbio as a req, then TAKE IT next sem if your planning on applying the upcoming summer. what pre-reqs have you done so far? when are you planning on applying? why dont you want to go to medicine anymore?

 

[libraryismyhome]

you can use your experience in medicine and twist it in a positive way. being involved in the field, and understanding that it was not for you.
if they have microbio as a req, then TAKE IT next sem if your planning on applying the upcoming summer. what pre-reqs have you done so far? when are you planning on applying? why dont you want to go to medicine anymore?

(1) I took gen chem, bio, physics, orgo, biochem, english, advanced cell bio, physiology, genetics, p,chem, p-biochem, neurobio, and psychology. Yeah I will take it over the Summer 2012, cause that would be the only way lol. I would need to apply in 2012.

(2) I graduated in 2010 but was not able to apply because I did not have a green card. I am getting it in December 2011 or January 2012. During my first gap year, I attempted to score high on MCAT by studying for 15 months, 70 hours per week and took it 3 times but my score stayed same. (subpar verbal and above average sciences and writing) So I have 50% chance to get in. This year, I am aiming to get a first author pub by doing research in neuro, because getting first pub in any medical field is going to immensely help my residency application. It's the most helpful one second to USMLE Step 1. So culminating in a first author pub is going to compensate my two forced gap years and allow me to turn this inequality into an opportunity. However, my PIs are extremely unsupportive cause their original intention of taking me in was to use me as a free laborer collecting data for them.

As I go deeper into medicine and learn more about it, I realize that the field is going to be very frustrating. It's rampant with competition, hierarchy, power abuse, taking advantage of each other, being superficial, betraying and stabbing another person on the back in order to protect one's interest and etc. In addition, I am extremely worried about my future, so I am thinking of dentistry as another option. I would need to come up with better reasons than this one now.

 

[bing12]

(1) I took gen chem, bio, physics, orgo, biochem, english, advanced cell bio, physiology, genetics, p,chem, p-biochem, neurobio, and psychology. Yeah I will take it over the Summer, cause that would be the only way lol.

(2) I graduated in 2010 but was not able to apply because I did not have a green card. I am getting it in December 2011 or January 2012. During my first gap year, I attempted to score high on MCAT by studying for 15 months, 70 hours per week and took it 3 times but my score stayed same. (subpar verbal and above average sciences and writing) So I have 50% chance to get in. This year, I am aiming to get a first author pub by doing research in neuro, because getting first pub in any medical field is going to immensely help my residency application. It's the most helpful one second to USMLE Step 1. So culminating in a first author pub is going to compensate my two forced gap years and allow me to turn this inequality into an opportunity. However, my PIs are extremely unsupportive cause their original intention of taking me in was to use me as a free laborer collecting data for them.

As I go deeper into medicine and learn more about it, I realize that the field is going to be very frustrating. It's rampant with competition, hierarchy, power abuse, taking advantage of each other, being superficial, betraying and stabbing another person on the back in order to protect one's interest and etc. In addition, I am extremely worried about my future, so I am thinking of dentistry as another option. I would need to come up with better reasons than this one now.

i suggest shadowing a dentist asap to see if you enjoy the work.

I thought this thread was interesting, might want to take a look at the differences of opinions on both fields.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=248939

 

[libraryismyhome]

i suggest shadowing a dentist asap to see if you enjoy the work.

I thought this thread was interesting, might want to take a look at the differences of opinions on both fields.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=248939

You are absolutely right. I am going to start with my sister's general dentist. And thank you for the thread link. 👍

 

[SeattleRDH]

Are you passionate about research? Dentistry needs researchers just as much as medicine.

It's true that there is more autonomy in dentistry than medicine, but there are negatives as well. When you shadow dentists (and you should try to shadow a handful) ask each of them why they chose dentistry over medicine and ask them if they are happy with their choice.

You may need to ask your letter writers if they wrote LORs specific to medical school. Some dental school adcoms don't like letters that say how you are going to make this wonderful physician. It is another way that your change from medicine to dentistry will be exposed.

 

[libraryismyhome]

Are you passionate about research? Dentistry needs researchers just as much as medicine.

It's true that there is more autonomy in dentistry than medicine, but there are negatives as well. When you shadow dentists (and you should try to shadow a handful) ask each of them why they chose dentistry over medicine and ask them if they are happy with their choice.

You may need to ask your letter writers if they wrote LORs specific to medical school. Some dental school adcoms don't like letters that say how you are going to make this wonderful physician. It is another way that your change from medicine to dentistry will be exposed.

Honestly, I am not into basic science research much. I did biochem/pharmacology research about an enzyme, but I litereally wanted to scream in bathroom if I stayed in the lab for more than 5 hours collecting kinematics data. Regardless, I wanted to earn second author, summa cum laude, scholarship, and poster, so I sucked it up and did it for 2.5 years.

Then clinical, neuro research, it's much better since it's about humans and neuro papers are interesting reads. It requires great deal of brain stamina and time since I have no med school education and need to look up a lot of med terms