Just Switched From Pre-dental To Pre-med

[mterp45]

Hey guys, I am new pre-med. I was always a pre-health and my goal has always been to become maxillofacial surgeon but I had not decided whether to go to medical or dental school for the first step as I will need to go to both in order to become one. My mind is now made up and this is my first thread as a pre-med hello.

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[maestro1625]

hello. However, because you have come to us from the dark side, it is in our best interests not to trust you and assume that you are indeed a spy for the conniving dentists...evil they are.

 

[dutchman]

Hey guys, I am new pre-med. I was always a pre-health and my goal has always been to become maxillofacial surgeon but I had not decided whether to go to medical or dental school for the first step as I will need to go to both in order to become one. My mind is now made up and this is my first thread as a pre-med hello.

So why did you decide to work longer hours and make less money?

 

[Nasem]

I was pre-dental also,
I did alot of shadowing with my sister (DDS), and I love dentistry,

My life came tumbling down when I shadowed our family MD (just to see what the fuss is all about), and let me tell you, it was love at first sight, maybe it was the doctor I shadowed (hes known me since I was a kid), but something inside of me screamed "NASEM GO MD GO MD GO MD"...

Anyways, yes,
MD = more hours, usually the same salary (but dentists work soo much less hours that it REALLY pays off), and the life style of an MD is just torturus and very hard esspecially when your patient dies and even worse, if it was your fault. BUT its all worth it when you know you are a person who saves lives.

I work as a software engineer now, I make a pretty nice salary for a 25 year old (60k plus all benefits and 3 or 4 week vacation fulltime paied every year), but its just boring, sitting down and working with software for 8 or 10 hrs a day is BORINGGGGG as hell.....

 

[JacobSilge]

So why did you decide to work longer hours and make less money?

Out of curiosity, why did you?

 

[mattypez]

Out of curiosity, why did you?

Did you guys not read his post. He wants to be an OMFS. Many of them get their dental degree than do a 5 year residency which includes the last 2 years of med school, to get an md degree as well. He is just doing the md leg first, then will attempt to get an omfs residency. He still wants to work with oral area, he just will be an md rather than an dds/md.....if it all goes to plan, which is another story.

 

[Vvandenn]

Did you guys not read his post. He wants to be an OMFS. Many of them get their dental degree than do a 5 year residency which includes the last 2 years of med school, to get an md degree as well. He is just doing the md leg first, then will attempt to get an omfs residency. He still wants to work with oral area, he just will be an md rather than an dds/md.....if it all goes to plan, which is another story.

Sounds like too much work.

 

[voirlesetoiles]

Welcome and thanks for not applying during this application cycle. haha. Otherwise, I would have thought "great, even more competition"

It's pretty early to decide on maxillofacial surgery. Have you shadowed someone in the field? Why choose this particular speciality?

 

[Vizsla]

your goal has always been to become a maxillofacial surgeon??? geez..im a 2nd yr and i only realized i wanted to become a "doctor" a few yrs ago

 

[JacobSilge]

Did you guys not read his post. He wants to be an OMFS. Many of them get their dental degree than do a 5 year residency which includes the last 2 years of med school, to get an md degree as well. He is just doing the md leg first, then will attempt to get an omfs residency. He still wants to work with oral area, he just will be an md rather than an dds/md.....if it all goes to plan, which is another story.

Sorry, I was talking to Dutchman, who never misses a chance to bash the medical profession.

Yes, the switch doesn't seem to shocking as many Oral Surgeons do not have the dentist lifestyle, though many complete a four year residency and do not complete an MD degree, making the training shorter than for any MD surgical specialty.

 

[GreenShirt]

Umm, a dental surgeon will complete 4 yrs of dental school followed by 4-7yrs of surgical residency....so that's about the same amount of time spent in school as an MD surgeon. The only difference would be more flexibility to change your mind about specialty down the road if you go the MD route.

 

[TheRealMD]

Umm, a dental surgeon will complete 4 yrs of dental school followed by 4-7yrs of surgical residency....so that's the same amount of time spent in school as an MD surgeon. The only difference would be more flexibility to change your mind about specialty down the road if you go the MD route.

Why does it take 10 posts to get such simple information out there? This is the problem when posting uninformed things.

 

[cnoevil]

Hey guys, I am new pre-med. I was always a pre-health and my goal has always been to become maxillofacial surgeon but I had not decided whether to go to medical or dental school for the first step as I will need to go to both in order to become one. My mind is now made up and this is my first thread as a pre-med hello.

hey ddsbound...how is your wife doing?

 

[apnea]

hey ddsbound...how is your wife doing?

LMAO

 

[Chungta]

Well, I am in the pre-med field too but I worked as a dental assistant for the past ~3 years (My friend offered me the job while I was a senior in high school). I just switched to another job as a receptionist at a Oriental Chinese Medicine office to be closer into the med field. I don't know how good it will help me though since it is actually the Eastern view of medicine instead of the Western... but it relates in some ways or another. Anyway, I just hope the position as a dental assistant doesn't affect me in a bad way when applying to med school.

 

[GreenShirt]

Why does it take 10 posts to get such simple information out there? This is the problem when posting uninformed things.

I guess in everybody's defense, I didn't know this until I read a pamphlet at the oral surgeon's office last week. If you think about it there's a certain standard of education when your job involves gassing people and cutting them up, which doesn't vary much by degree. I'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled...definitely freaking out.

 

[AggieSean]

I'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled...definitely freaking out.

It can almost be fun if you get nitrous oxide.