Share your residency experience

[Danio]

Hi, can anyone please share their experiences in dental residency. Members of this forum usually talk about the admission process of residencies but I would like to know what life is like in dental residency.

Is it very similar to dental school (a lot of studying and not much free time)? Do you enjoy it, how much do you get paid, can you also work part time in addition to completing residency? How much free time do you have, are you happy that you pursued your specialty.

I am particularly interested in orthodontic residency but any experiences from other specialties are welcome as well.

Thanks in advance.

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[brengy]

!

 

[Danio]

come on, anyone??? Any experiences at all?

 

[Bifid Uvula]

Are you looking for specific experiences or stories or what the residency programs are like? There is tons of info on what many of the OMFS residency programs are like above in the Program Overview section.

 

[Danio]

Im just looking for a general feel of dentists who decided to specialize... are they satisfied with their decision, how did everything turn out for them, did they work while in specializing and so on =)

 

[OG1]

My ortho residency is pretty much like your average full-time job: I'm at school 9 hours a day counting an hour of lunch. After school I go to the gym for an hour, then go home to my family and spend time with them. Weekends are all mine. I can do this because I stay on task while I'm at school, and I take very short lunches (15-20 min) and then work the rest of the time. I figure every minute I dink around at school chit-chatting or wasting time is a minute away from free time or time with my family.

There are times when I have to study. For example, we have an anatomy midterm and final; I studied very hard for a week for the midterm, and will probably have to study more for the final. We had a ceph course where I had to study hard for a couple of nights. Other than that I hardly study outside of school. But, I do take time to read things at school when I have spare time in between patients, and during lunch.

Every residency will be different, though.

As for being satisfied, I never practiced outside of dental school, but I can tell you this: I generally dreaded seeing my patients and performing procedures in dental school, but I love seeing patients in my residency and enjoy the work. If a patient didn't show up for their appointment at dental school, I'd be glad because I didn't want to do it anyways; now if they don't show up, I'm bummed. Maybe that's because I always wanted to do ortho, though - it may have soured my dental school experience, I probably would have gotten more joy out of general dentistry if it's what I had planned to do all along.

 

[Danio]

My ortho residency is pretty much like your average full-time job: I'm at school 9 hours a day counting an hour of lunch. After school I go to the gym for an hour, then go home to my family and spend time with them. Weekends are all mine. I can do this because I stay on task while I'm at school, and I take very short lunches (15-20 min) and then work the rest of the time. I figure every minute I dink around at school chit-chatting or wasting time is a minute away from free time or time with my family.

There are times when I have to study. For example, we have an anatomy midterm and final; I studied very hard for a week for the midterm, and will probably have to study more for the final. We had a ceph course where I had to study hard for a couple of nights. Other than that I hardly study outside of school. But, I do take time to read things at school when I have spare time in between patients, and during lunch.

Every residency will be different, though.

As for being satisfied, I never practiced outside of dental school, but I can tell you this: I generally dreaded seeing my patients and performing procedures in dental school, but I love seeing patients in my residency and enjoy the work. If a patient didn't show up for their appointment at dental school, I'd be glad because I didn't want to do it anyways; now if they don't show up, I'm bummed. Maybe that's because I always wanted to do ortho, though - it may have soured my dental school experience, I probably would have gotten more joy out of general dentistry if it's what I had planned to do all along.

Thanks for that info, really interesting. One question though, are you able to support yourself and your family with the residency income???

 

[OG1]

Thanks for that info, really interesting. One question though, are you able to support yourself and your family with the residency income???

Two words: Sallie Mae.

 

[TJNova2011]

My ortho residency is pretty much like your average full-time job: I'm at school 9 hours a day counting an hour of lunch. After school I go to the gym for an hour, then go home to my family and spend time with them. Weekends are all mine. I can do this because I stay on task while I'm at school, and I take very short lunches (15-20 min) and then work the rest of the time. I figure every minute I dink around at school chit-chatting or wasting time is a minute away from free time or time with my family.

There are times when I have to study. For example, we have an anatomy midterm and final; I studied very hard for a week for the midterm, and will probably have to study more for the final. We had a ceph course where I had to study hard for a couple of nights. Other than that I hardly study outside of school. But, I do take time to read things at school when I have spare time in between patients, and during lunch.

Every residency will be different, though.

As for being satisfied, I never practiced outside of dental school, but I can tell you this: I generally dreaded seeing my patients and performing procedures in dental school, but I love seeing patients in my residency and enjoy the work. If a patient didn't show up for their appointment at dental school, I'd be glad because I didn't want to do it anyways; now if they don't show up, I'm bummed. Maybe that's because I always wanted to do ortho, though - it may have soured my dental school experience, I probably would have gotten more joy out of general dentistry if it's what I had planned to do all along.

Congratulations!

How did you know that you wanted to do ortho from day one? Did you have a lot of previous exposure?