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Research during Dental School?
Started by crazy4clana
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Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
I did research because it was a requirement for graduation at UCLA (I believe it is optional now). Try to do a simple project. I did a very simple study with an ortho resident (actually, he did all the hard works😀) on facial profile analysis. The only statistical test we used was a student t- test to compare our data to previous data. It only took us a year to complete the project.
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As someone who worked on multiple projects, and presented at a few different meetings, I can tell you there is time. What you have to remember is that you only have a limited amount of time in d-school. If you spend time doing research, you aren't able to use that time to study, or eat, work-out, relax, sleep, etc. It all depends on your priorities and where you want to spend your limited amount of time. If you are interested in specializing, most people do some sort of reserach, though this seems not quite as important for OMFS. If you are going to do research and want to specialize, don't let it affect your grades. If it's a choice between grades and research, go with the grades. Hope this helps.
I had an NIDR fellowship scholarship while in dental school. I did research on dental implant longevity and presented it at the NIDR meeting. That was alot of fun and I learned a ton. Most of my friends did research under a scholarship of some type.
Definitely do-able. I did research the summer between D1 and D2 and got a school grant for it 🙂 Some of my classmates continued doing research even in the summer between D2 and D3, and about 1/4 of the third year class is doing research during the school year. Dental school really isn't that bad, other than second year, you will have plenty of free time!
Participating a research project will give you a whole new perspective on your dental school and the faculty members. Some advice for your project:
1. Many schools have a setup for D1s to do research the summer before dental school starts, which is a perfect time to get acquainted with your new city and school during a more laid-back time than the first few weeks of dental school (!)
2. Choose your mentor carefully. Find someone whose work you're geniunely interested in - this is important, because wanting to go into a speciality probably won't be enough motivation to drag yourself into the lab when your friends are out playing because class ended early.
3. More about the mentor: find someone who has well-planned projects set up for a dental student to do successfully within a few months. Materials science projects are often great for this, but this can vary by school. To get the most out of your experience, you want to find a project that will elicit interesting findings that you can turn into an abstract (with your mentor's help) and present a local or national dental research meeting.
4. Plan carefully and manage your time well, and you shouldn't have any trouble fitting research into your dental school experience. Your dental school should be able to put you in contact with faculty members or the student research group at your school to help you figure out the details before you get there.
5. Good luck!
1. Many schools have a setup for D1s to do research the summer before dental school starts, which is a perfect time to get acquainted with your new city and school during a more laid-back time than the first few weeks of dental school (!)
2. Choose your mentor carefully. Find someone whose work you're geniunely interested in - this is important, because wanting to go into a speciality probably won't be enough motivation to drag yourself into the lab when your friends are out playing because class ended early.
3. More about the mentor: find someone who has well-planned projects set up for a dental student to do successfully within a few months. Materials science projects are often great for this, but this can vary by school. To get the most out of your experience, you want to find a project that will elicit interesting findings that you can turn into an abstract (with your mentor's help) and present a local or national dental research meeting.
4. Plan carefully and manage your time well, and you shouldn't have any trouble fitting research into your dental school experience. Your dental school should be able to put you in contact with faculty members or the student research group at your school to help you figure out the details before you get there.
5. Good luck!
