Shadowing at a General office vs Specialty office

[Landonhagen]

I am a Pre-Dent applying to Dental school next year. I have an internship at a Pediatric Dentist's office for the summer. Will this look worse for my application than interning at a general dentist's office? I've heard many times that shadowing should be done at a general office, but I have a great relationship with this Pediatric dentist so I'd like to work with him. Do dental schools care that much about shadowing specialists vs general or family dentists?

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[S_Diamond_DDS]

Some schools specify the number of hours that should be allocated and how. Check the adea guide or the school sites for that info. When I applied I found 100 hours was a safe number, except for a few schools, like midwestern, preferred a ton more. In regard specifically to your shadowing at a specialty versus general question, I would say feel free to shadow your pediatric dentist for any number of hours (especially since you’ll need a couple of letter of recommendations from these dentists/specialists anyway), but keep in mind that (I assume) they prefer that the greatest number of hours be spent at a general office since this is more appropriate to the experience you’ll get in dental school, and ideally the shadowing should be spread across a couple of different dentists. For example, I shadowed 100 hours: shadowed at one gen dent office for 30 hours, another for 25, a third for 25, and shadowed at a pediatric office for 20, for a total of 80 hours of gen and 20 from a specialty.

 

[RYost234]

100% you should get at least 40-50 hours shadowing a general dentist. Shadowing specialists in addition can be a benefit cause you'll have more to talk about

 

[biochem5]

My letter of rec was from my pediatric dentist (at the time I didn’t really have a choice, the general I shadowed wouldn’t write one for me). You want it from someone you have a good relationship with otherwise it will look generic.