Oral Surgery?

[GatorWell]

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Has anyone done oral surgery here? I started out as pre-dent and I have taken MCAT this April. I have done fairly well and I have 4.0 GPA. I have already submitted the primary application, but I am rethinkin about my future. A lot of my friends are dental students, including my sister. I noticed that they are all happy and my interest in dentistry grew even more. (I was pre-dent my first year, thus i was able to finish prereq classes for predent).
After talkin to my parents, I am thinking about switching to dental. Is it too late for me to pick up DAT and application process? I have studied sciences for MCAT. So, I dont think science will give me toubles. I am more worried about PAT. and the fact that I took MCAT. Would they know I took it? Thanks.

 

[UBTom]

Well, if you are interested in both dentistry and medicine, oralmaxillofacial surgery (OMFS) is a good path to follow... If you are willing to put up with 10 years total of training.

4 years of dental school for your DDS degree, then 4 years of residency training and 2 years of medical school for your MD degree. (an increasing number of programs for oral surgery these days gives you an MD degree so you can also practice medicine).

It shouldn't matter that you took the MCAT... So did I back when I was in undergrad. Some dental schools do want to know if you are applying to institutions in other health care fields at the same time (i.e. med school), but just taking the MCATs don't mean a thing. 😀

It is indeed a little late to be applying for September 2003 admission if that's what you are askiing... The 2004 application cycle has started at some schools though.

Good luck!

 

[GatorWell]

Thanks for your feedback and info. I have been seriously thinking about what I am truly interested. I ended up choosing dental.

I will be applying to dental for the 2004 cycle. Thanks. if you have any suggestion about studyin, let me know. I ONLY have a month 🙁 THanks!

 

[ibo man]

GatorWell,
Just curious. Why dentistry? and not mediciine?

 

[millmm]

GatorWell,

I was in the same situation as you about 1-2 yrs ago. I chose dental school and will be starting @ U Iowa in the fall. I too am interested in Oral and Maxillofacial surgery. What you must realize however is that you must also be very interested in general dentistry, its what you will be doing for 4 yrs; for me the facts that I love surgery, am most satisfied when doing task oriented manual stuff, and that something like internal medicine or psychiatry would be boring led me to dentistry. I have looked alot into all aspects of dentistry and decided that they are all interesting and that I will pursue them whith hopes of becoming an OMS someday. Other things you have to know, OMS is a competitive residency to match out of dental school. You should have a goal of 3.7 GPA or higher, high board scores, good extracurricular acitvities (research) and be liked by the OMS dept at your school. This is easily said, but my upperclassman friends remind me often of how D school is like trying to sip H20 out of a fire hydrant. But if you are truly dedicated I feel that you can accomplish any goal. All being said OMS is a great field for people who like Med and Dent; if you want more info about it go to www.aaoms.org. This website has alot about the scope of OMS and the post doctoral programs out there. If you do go to dental school good luck and work hard, it will be worth it. Another member of SDN, Yah-E is a great resource regarding OMS. Try to

 

[GatorWell]

Thank you. I am plannin to withdraw my MD applications... i might have regrets about not going to medicine but I truly believe that dentristy might be more for me. I don't exactly know the intensity of dental school.. (i haven't even started studyin for DAT yet... you think 1 month will be enough with good science background? I am bit worried about PAT 🙁 Well.. I hope I made the right choice of choosing dentistry. Thanks for the help. I might annoy you with admission questions later on.. thanks!

 

[Doggie]

Hey Gatorwell,

Dont worry about the DAT's..............it is at best a child's play compared to the MCAT......I know cuz I also was in your predicament a few years back. 🙄

I dont think you really have to worry too much with the sciences, reading comp, or math.....just worry about the PAT. Pull out your 3D organic chemistry molecule set and practice thinking 3 dimentionally. Also, practice drawing 3D while mentally unfolding them into 2D counterparts. The hardest section for me was angle comparison......even to this day, I dont see how that is relevant to dentistry.

I basically prepared the DAT's with MCAT materials and a DAT book with some practice PAT sections...I managed to do ok for myself. 😀

 

[UBTom]

to Doggie:

Actually, angles comparison is VERY important in certain aspects of dentistry:

1) Operative dentistry - You have to keep the walls of a prep as parallel as possible because that is what retains an amalgam filling. You also have to be able to prep a proximal box with the side walls 90 degrees to the surface of the enamel to ensure parallelism to the enamel prism rods, which prevents undercutting enamel (which weakens them) and ensures the margins of a filling stays strong.

2) Fixed prosthodontics - How well a crown or bridge resists twisting and lifting forces are due to a large part to the angle of the axial surfaces when you shave down the teeth. If you can't judge angles well here, the bridge or crown you make will either have no common path of insertion (very financially costly mistake since you will need to have those re-made by the lab), or poorly retained (falls off easily).

3) Removable prosthodontics - You need to be able to judge angles to be able to cut surveyed guide planes and heights of contours to ensure there is a path of insertion for a partial denture.

4) Implant dentistry - An implant must be placed at the specified location and at the correct angle, otherwise it will be non-restorable and the whole thing will need extensive work to correct (very costly!).

And probably a few other things I forgot to mention.

So yes, it's very relevent to dentistry! And yes, back then when I took the DATs I didn't know any better either. 😀

Good luck!

 

[Doggie]

Hey Tom,

Whew......luckily, I havent had those problems that you mentioned yet. *knock on wood* But yeah....I see how angles CAN be important, if you put it in that perspective. Still tho, there are various equipments and stuff to help you insure parallelism, etc when you are preparing tooth preps or implants. 😀

 

[gryffindor]

Hey Doggie,

Here's one more to UBTom's list

5) orthodontics

Part of my summer job is to sit in a dark room and trace all the cephalometric x-rays (a side shot of the head) the orthodontists don't want to, and then measure like 17 angles off each x-ray using a protractor.

I think there are computer programs that do this, however, these doctors do it all by hand.

As I sit there, I keep on thinking about that stupid angle section on the PAT and this must be the one place where you actually use angles in dentistry. Because after I finish tracing, the doctors go through my angles and compare it with the angles the kid started with to see if they improved over the course of their ortho treatment.

 

[GatorWell]

Thanks for the advise 🙂 But I have a question for you guys. During the interview, did they know you have taken the MCAT?

 

[Supernumerary]

Gatorwell, I don't think it's really so much of an issue to have taken the MCAT - as long as you did well. If you got, say, a 22 well... that might be bad 😉 . Basically, the adcomms just don't want to fill up their classes with people who bombed the MCAT and are doing dentistry as their back up plan. These people are going to be unhappy, unsuccessful students. Schools would rather fill their slots up with people excited about dentistry, even if these people have smaller numbers. This makes things easier on faculty, produces better dentists, increases school reputation, etc...

That said, I think the fact that you are actually withdrawing your med school apps will be looked upon very favorably. Just be sure to have good, solid reasons for your sudden change of heart - though it sounds like you've already got that under control. 🙂 Good Luck.

 

[millmm]

GatorWell,

UB TOM has some valid points, however the director of admissions @my school said that an ongoing attempt to demonstrate a correlation btw PAT performance and clinical yrs success in d-school, has been unsuccessful. Never the less, it is part of the DAT so practice it. Also practice the math section, it seems like simple algebra from 8th grade but is easily forgotten when not used. You asked about the intensity of dental school. An illustrative example will shed some light on this. An uppercalssman Dental student at Iowa went to Princeton Undergrad where he was top of his class and went to med school for a year, where he was also top of his class. He dropped out when he realized dentistry was what he wanted to do, and is top of his class here also. He said that Dent school is harder because of all the lab/clinical stuff required in addition to the diadactic stuff. So get ready to work. If you go into OMS you wont miss medicine at all. You will be doing alot of this type of thing anyway as an OMS, especially in the 6 yrs of residency.

 

[GatorWell]

Thanks for the quick replies. I was wonderin how they figured out that I took MCAT? is it on the transcript?

 

[UBTom]

To millmm:

I'm not saying one way or another whether if the PAT is an effective indicator of how successful one will be in dental school.

All I'm saying is that angle perception is VERY important in many major areas of dental practice (to answer Doggie's question why angles are relevant to dentistry). THAT you cannot deny.

If you aren't able to recognize angles, taper or parallelism or don't consider them important, I don't mind if your patients come to me to have repairs done for fillings you placed that fall out after a few days, or crowns you inserted that doesn't stay glued on, or RPDs you made that don't fit. Your loss, my gain. 😀

 

[Supernumerary]

Gatorwell, I'm pretty sure the app doesn't specifically ask about other professional exams you've taken, but it does ask if you've applied for other programs. Don't lie!!! Being honest and explaining yourself wil get you a lot further than being sneaky and covering stuf up. I wouldn't come right out and say, yeah, I took the MCAT too. But an interviewer or two may ask about it.

I really wouldn't sweat this too much; I know of at least a couple who've taken the MCAT and been accepted to dental school. The schools realize that dentistry and medicine are related fields. So naturally there are going to be people with a sincere interest in both. I believe that as long as they can see that you're truly interested and excited about dentistry, this won't be an issue for you. At least, that's how I'd feel if I were on an adcomm - which I'm not. But if I were... 🙂

 

[millmm]

UB Tom,

I am not arguing that these are important skills, just that the DAT isnt a good indicator of how one will perfrom regarding these tasks. I think that many of the aforementioned skills are learned in dental school. Thats all. We all know that the actaul DAT is a joke on this part anyhow due to the poor resolution on the screen anyhow. When I got to this part, i just kind of laughed at how pi-- poor the pictures were.