Pre-Dental Program

Started by hotvietboi123
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Ive heard of it, and i want to go as well. If anyone knows or has experience with it i would love to know!
 
i have never heard about this program before....but i am looking at their website & it looks very informative & interesting. This would definitely look good on application. PLease let me know if any1 of you are planning to go. Because i would love to go...
thanks for the website!
 
Has anyone gone on any of those trips? It looks really interesting!
 
yeah, makes u wonder just how much of an asset something like that would be on an application...........
 
One of my friend went on that program to Costa Rica and Africa as pre-med.
I heard she really had a good experience and also had a chance to actually pull out a tooth from a patient.
I am also planning to go maybe this fall.
Sounds like a good program.
 
ejdiana said:
One of my friend went on that program to Costa Rica and Africa as pre-med.
I heard she really had a good experience and also had a chance to actually pull out a tooth from a patient.
I am also planning to go maybe this fall.
Sounds like a good program.
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Is your friend a dentist, dental student, or college student? I'll definitely join if I can get an experience (perform an extraction procedure) like this.
 
Its kind of expensive, I'll probably go next year with my friend. I'm just wondering if this would be a good program to do.
 
I didn't look at the website but I have gone on a humanitarian type trip before and I actually performed numerous extractions and fillings. I went to Peru in 2005 in hopes that the experience would help my application and my chances of getting into dental school. Which brings me to now, my second application cycle and still not going to get in. In other words these experiences are good for your application but if you think that they will be a large factor in determining whether or not to accept you, your wrong. I do believe that the personal experience, exposure, and knowledge is beyond measure. But I don't personally believe it will do a whole lot for your application. Granted this is my own experience and personal opinion. I could be wrong.
 
I talked to someone who was a college student, pre-dental, and she extracted teeth in costa rica. They also let her give injections, it's pretty neat from what I heard, but it's expensive.
 
I wonder if programs like this could actually backfire assuming that pre-dents have not been trained on give injections or do extractions. There may be an ethical undertone to this type of program.
 
karntrev said:
I didn't look at the website but I have gone on a humanitarian type trip before and I actually performed numerous extractions and fillings. I went to Peru in 2005 in hopes that the experience would help my application and my chances of getting into dental school. Which brings me to now, my second application cycle and still not going to get in. In other words these experiences are good for your application but if you think that they will be a large factor in determining whether or not to accept you, your wrong. I do believe that the personal experience, exposure, and knowledge is beyond measure. But I don't personally believe it will do a whole lot for your application. Granted this is my own experience and personal opinion. I could be wrong.
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I'm glad to hear that someone had actually been on this type of trips, would you please share some of your joy and tears with us? How was it? Worth the $$$? Did you actually learn something during the trip? Did you pick up any Spanish (if you don't already speak)? If you had invited for interview(s), did the adcomm ask you any questions regarding the trip? How much did you actually spend over there? 🙂

p.s. I'm sorry for the millions questions
 
ddstobe said:
I'm glad to hear that someone had actually been on this type of trips, would you please share some of your joy and tears with us? How was it? Worth the $$$? Did you actually learn something during the trip? Did you pick up any Spanish (if you don't already speak)? If you had invited for interview(s), did the adcomm ask you any questions regarding the trip? How much did you actually spend over there? 🙂

p.s. I'm sorry for the millions questions
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I loved every minute of it. I worked with Peruvian trained dentists which may not have been the most efficient but we gave the injections and we extracted all kinds of teeth. I probably extracted over 30 teeth and filled more than 15. We pulled more than we filled because their teeth were so bad. But it was a very humbling experience to go through. On a couple of adults I actually pulled thier last tooth, how sad is that. I also did some medical stuff as well so that everyone could have a chance to pull some teeth even if they weren't pre-dental. I already spoke Spanish so that helped but you can definitely get by with translators if you don't speak any Spanish but it does make the trip more enjoyable if you know some Spanish. Some adcoms did ask about it but they didn't really spend a lot of time on it. I spent two weeks there. We also took of tour of Machu Pichu (sorry if I spelled it wrong), went boating down the Amazon river, and other sight seeing trips. It was well worth the money and it cost me about $3000. When I say worth the money I mean personally. Like I said I don't think the adcoms think it is a very big deal.
 
karntrev said:
I loved every minute of it. I worked with Peruvian trained dentists which may not have been the most efficient but we gave the injections and we extracted all kinds of teeth. I probably extracted over 30 teeth and filled more than 15. We pulled more than we filled because their teeth were so bad. But it was a very humbling experience to go through. On a couple of adults I actually pulled thier last tooth, how sad is that. I also did some medical stuff as well so that everyone could have a chance to pull some teeth even if they weren't pre-dental. I already spoke Spanish so that helped but you can definitely get by with translators if you don't speak any Spanish but it does make the trip more enjoyable if you know some Spanish. Some adcoms did ask about it but they didn't really spend a lot of time on it. I spent two weeks there. We also took of tour of Machu Pichu (sorry if I spelled it wrong), went boating down the Amazon river, and other sight seeing trips. It was well worth the money and it cost me about $3000. When I say worth the money I mean personally. Like I said I don't think the adcoms think it is a very big deal.
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Just wondering, but how old were you when you did this? And were you an undergraduate? From your description it sounds fun/exciting, lots of adventure heh.
 
karntrev said:
I loved every minute of it. I worked with Peruvian trained dentists which may not have been the most efficient but we gave the injections and we extracted all kinds of teeth. I probably extracted over 30 teeth and filled more than 15. We pulled more than we filled because their teeth were so bad. But it was a very humbling experience to go through. On a couple of adults I actually pulled thier last tooth, how sad is that. I also did some medical stuff as well so that everyone could have a chance to pull some teeth even if they weren't pre-dental. I already spoke Spanish so that helped but you can definitely get by with translators if you don't speak any Spanish but it does make the trip more enjoyable if you know some Spanish. Some adcoms did ask about it but they didn't really spend a lot of time on it. I spent two weeks there. We also took of tour of Machu Pichu (sorry if I spelled it wrong), went boating down the Amazon river, and other sight seeing trips. It was well worth the money and it cost me about $3000. When I say worth the money I mean personally. Like I said I don't think the adcoms think it is a very big deal.
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Thank you so much for the inputs. It does give me a lot to think about. Do you mind telling us or post the link of your humanitarian trip?
 
hotvietboi123 said:
Just wondering, but how old were you when you did this? And were you an undergraduate? From your description it sounds fun/exciting, lots of adventure heh.
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I was 27 when I went and at the time I was still working on my undergraduate degree. The website for the trip I went on was www.thehopealliance.org. This in a non-religious humanitarian group based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. It was founded by an MD who decided to do humanitarian work instead of practicing in an office. It is somewhat spendy but they put you up in a good hotel and most of your meals are paid for out of the money you spend to go on the trip. You do some sight seeing but for the most part you are working in a temporary clinic (school) seeing patients for 10-12 hours a day. Like I said, I had a blast and I learned a lot. Sometimes the trip can be somewhat disorganized but how can you really organize how many patients your going to see and what you going to do? It's in another country and you never know what to expect.
 
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