Hi, what do u recommend current dental students do to secure a chance at a residency program? Do we need to get LORs and participate in extracurriculars, do research?
Depends on the residency pretty heavily. Number 1 thing is rank. Try to be as high as possible. Number 2 would probably be getting the best LORs you can get. These would be universal across the board. Most programs need 3 LOR plus a recommendation from the actual school. So do all you can to have the best letters you can have. As far as research goes that’s very program dependent and residency dependent. But most view it as just a check box. Extracurriculars don’t have to be crazy. Just try to be moderately involved in something.
Depends on the school. My school claims it’s P/F but it’s not. A’s are possible but if you’re concerned about rank you can be completely average during pre clinic and as long as your a beast in clinic you’ll be near the top of your class. It’s school dependent. If I could go back, I’d study way less. Didactics are mostly BS you’ll never use anyone. At least 95% of it is
Depends on the school. My school claims it’s P/F but it’s not. A’s are possible but if you’re concerned about rank you can be completely average during pre clinic and as long as you’re a beast in clinic you’ll be near the top of your class. It’s school dependent. If I could go back, I’d study way less. Didactics are mostly BS you’ll never use anyway. At least 95% of it is unless you’re shooting for OMS. But the tests aren’t bad. Easier than undergrad tests just way more material. You honestly don’t need to understand concepts in depth as much as undergrad. A lot of it has to do with goals too. I’ve went back and forth between perio vs general dentistry but ultimately decided on doing an AEGD and going the general dentistry route. I’m top 10% which opens some doors for the really really good AEGDs so the rank can matter regardless. Just while your friends are struggling to get a 95, study to get like a 78 and spend the rest of the time practicing. Then you’ll have a leg up in clinic when things matter.
What is your reasoning for doing an AEGD instead of going straight into practice?
This was my exact struggle a year ago. It's a tough decision. I ended up choosing perio myself, but can see how I will miss doing Composites etc.
I think everyone should make a distinction. There are good AEGDs/GPRs and there are bad ones. In my opinion if you want to be an owner or be in private practice setting spending time in medical rotations is not the best use of your time. A 2 mo ER rotation you may learn plenty but little applicable skills to private practice. The good residencies in my opinion allow you to produce the most you can but also treat as many patients as possible. For me being efficient in surgical EXT, a decent amount of endo, and simple to moderate level implant cases is my goal for residency because those are skills that directly transfer to private practice. Shadowing an Anesthesiologist doesn’t sound like a great use of my time. So I chose AEGD/GPR because it will allow me to treat the most common more complex procedures within my own practice in the future. My long term goal is to be sort of the pseudo specialist within my own office, doing a decent amount of surgeries while feeding bread and butter and mentoring my associates.
I struggled with it too. Love perio, ultimately came down to things outside of the profession.
What have I enjoyed most? You make some great friends just cause your on the struggle bus together. What have I hated most? That’s tough, I hate dental school in general. I think schools have interests outside of their students becoming better clinicians. I hate wasting time learning biochem when the fact of the matter is, it’s absolutely useless. I hated being graded on a plastic tooth on the anatomy of a filling because it’s stupid. I hated filling like id suck in clinic because someone who’s never worked a day in private practice said my marginal ridge was too bulky. So much bs. Advice for rising D2s? Get as comfortable with indirect vision as you can, find faculty you trust early that you can consistently work with in clinic. Don’t give wait to the advice from people you know have no idea what they’re doing. For upcoming D1s? Know it’s going to suck. Don’t make any enemies early on, just keep your nose down, pass, and try to make some friends and have fun. Oh and just some general advice, despite what you’ll read and hear you do not have to be perio or OS to make a lot of money. Endo and ortho are not dying, and the average salary of a general dentist when googled is so misconstrued you should give no wait to it at all. Learn the business of dentistry early. If private practice is your goal know that just because someone has DDS beside their name and has owned an office DOES NOT MEAN THEY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RUNNING A BUSINESS. Start early, podcasts, books, shadowing offices that are highly successful (corporate offices like Heartland for example) not for the clinical aspect but to learn business skills. Dental school will teach you nothing even if you have a course called “business.” My favorite is Shared Practices. But you may find a passion in it or you may learn you hate business but having some sort of financial motivation to pursue a residency because you heard they make more money from some random source or some flawed ADA self reported survey is not a good reason to specialize. 🙂
cant you still do composites as a perio? My boss was a perio and he still did composites all the time
Your boss might be a perio practicing as a GP. Perfectly fine option. I don’t like doing fillings. I feel like this is the same for most docs. But I enjoy prosth and surgery which is why I opted out of doing perio.
Love this question thanks for sharing. If you get in youre smart enough to pass tests in my opinion. Does it mean you’ll love dentistry? No. A lot of people hate dentistry and just won’t admit it. I think people who get in and don’t finish do it because they don’t find their passion within dentistry. There’s so much more to dentistry than drill and fill. You could love business like me, you could love clinic, you could love science, you could love teaching. Tons of ways to find your passion, and it is a great career income wise if you stick with it. If you think it’s going to be easy and you did it because undergrad was easy I challenge you to think about the real reason you entered the profession. Was it for money? To help people? Because you liked science? Different strokes for different folks. I would say stick with it. It beats a lot of other jobs. Because it is a job despite what others tell you. I would say it’s rare to get in and quit. For studying your topics you don’t care about, suck it up, work hard and get through it. No matter what job you do you’re going to have to deal with things that suck. Don’t think to hard about what the school thinks of you. It’s not like they know your desires and what you want for your future. They don’t know you. You know you. Tons of drama. Not going to lie. People love drama. Stay out of it if you can. If you can’t, well, you do you. As a D1 know that most of the things you’re doing is jumping through hoops. Don’t think it defines you. If you’re in lab try to get as fast as possible and learn to use the mirror. Try to work on your vision. What do you want out of dentistry? To make a lot of money? To work few hours? To be a clinical monster? To specialize? If you want to specialize I challenge you to ask yourself why? If it’s prestige that’s the wrong reason. I promise you nobody cares because 90% of the public only knows what a dentist and an orthodontist is. Once you know what your vision is DM me. We can talk about a decent path in my opinion. How can you get good clinically? Practice a lot. Ask the professors you trust if your preps and restorations on plastic teeth are adequate. They don’t need to be the best, they just need to be functional. Once you get there, get fast. If you can be fast and get to good enough you’ve got plastic teeth down. Then once you start working on patients, be patient. It takes some time to adjust. Things will feel different and awkward, but, in 4-6 months you’ll get the hang of it. Be confident. You know you know how to prep a tooth, do it. Don’t spend an hour pittling because it’s good but not great. Don’t second guess your self. You can do it, just work with professors you trust and trust yourself. And lastly, embrace the journey. Everyone can do it. I honestly believe you can find a portion of dentistry you love even if it isn’t clinical. What your classmates do or say they want to do is meaningless.
Also there’s not an entity telling you you can’t. It’s just that a lot of dentists who have a scarcity mindset won’t refer to a specialist who they think is stealing “their” patients
