Specializing and research

[flat4]

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I've noticed people mentioning that you are better off at a "research" oriented school if you are planning on specializing. How important is it to have "research" on your resume when applying to one of these postgrad programs? What other factors, besides rankings and board scores, are important? Thank you in advance.
-Darn those Lakers!

 

[tinker bell]

Lakers,
I heard that it's extremely hard to get in ucsf specialty if you don't have research experience under your belt. That's some rumors I heard. I'm not even sure if it's official. Why don't you contact the chair of the specialty at the school that you like and ask for sure. I'm sure that he/she will tell u. There should be no secret about it.
I don't know how it goes for other schools. However, Temple, a clinical school has an extremely high matching rate. So, I guess that experience is important equally.
Tink

 

[flat4]

Tink,
Thanks for always answering my questions. It's a little early in the game for me so I don't know where I would want to go. Matter a fact, I'm not 100% sure I want to specialize (I guess I'll find out when rankings come out after the first term ). When did you first realize that you wanted to specialize? Also, is it important to go to a school in the state you intend to specialize in?
Lake Show

 

[gryffindor]

GoLakers - it depends on the program and the specialty. The oral surgery residents at school have told me you don't need to do research, there are programs that will take you without it. I've seen a number of students get into ortho with only 1 summer (or even less, like 4 weeks) of research, but they all had high ranks (<10). I don't know what these students write on their applications or if program directors can discern between someone who spends one summer vs a student who spends three summers. One of our research mentors teaches a seminar to all the new post-grads about reading a scientific paper and is always amazed at the number of ortho residents the school accepts that don't know how to read a scientific paper. I don't think any of the pedo applicants from our school have ever done significant amounts of research - I'm told that specialty is one where your experience and personality count more. However, there was an endo applicant who posted here once who had a bunch of interviews at research-oreinted dental schools and felt that since he was getting a master's along with his DDS, the extra research experience he had may have played a role in getting the interviews.

The whole point of doing research, I'm told, is that many specialty programs now require you to obtain the master's degree and in order to do that, you have to do some research while in their program. So they just want to make sure you can handle it by noting whether you did any as a dental student. But the students they are accepting are all bright anyways, so they could handle the research even if they hadn't done any as a dental student. It's not that hard to figure out research.

If you wanted to do research, you could find an opportunity at any dental school you went to. If the dental school did absolutely no research, you could still go the the nearby med school or science department - someone would take you on. It isn't crucial to go to dental school in the state you want to specialize in. People get into programs all over the country from my school, even though we are a very regional state school.

I think I first realized I could specialize after the rankings came out first semester. I decided I wanted to specialize during the first semester of junior year when I got exposed to clinic and found too many procedures I just don't like and could really do without. As a specialist, I could only concentrate on those I like. I also realized that adults in the chair really annoy me and I'd rather work with kids.

 

[GV Black Jr.]

For most programs I think its numbers (Class rank NBDE score). But research couldn't hurt. Go to a "clinical" school not a "research" school. It is more impressive to know what you're doing as a dentist than to be a great scientist. Besides every type of school has research opportunities if you look. As far as master degrees go, at my DS the only program that has you do one is ortho.

 

[flat4]

Thank you guys very much for the informative response. I definitely won't know until the initial rankings come out but its nice to know what steps I need to take in case I choose that route...which is basically to become a geek and study my a#@ off. Also, I'm not sure but I think Griffin misunderstood me when I was asking whether you should go to school in the state where you want to practice. I should have been more clear but I was talking about the POSTGRAD program: should you choose the postgrad program based on where you want to practice? If that's what you meant, then please excuse my ignorance. Thanks again.

Lakers

 

[tinker bell]

I'm pretty sure that @ every school, includes ucsf, number is a big factor. From my understanding, they pick all students who have number in the acceptable rank, then they compare between them. And here, I believe that the one who has research experience will get a bonus point in their ranking.
If you contack the school, they should tell u how they grade their students. And I don't believe in any residency story at all. Last year, at least 1 student from canada got in at ucsf (with almost 4.0 and very high DAT). I don't think any school would pass that kind of student, regardless where's she/he from.
If you guys look at last year threads on this forum, you guys will believe that number is the biggest factor of the game.
T

 

[gryffindor]

Hey GoLakers,

Choosing a post-grad program based on the state you want to practice is tricky. Post-grad admissions in dentistry is very unlike dental school admissions in one big way - it's really hard to hold multiple acceptances to programs in different parts of the country. Many post-grad programs (general residencies as well as specialties like ortho, OMS, pedo) utilize the Match service. It works something like this - you apply to all the programs you want to attend. Those programs might interview you. After the interviews, you have to rank the programs you applied to, so you rank the one you really want to attend (and also interviewed you) #1. The programs also rank all of their applicants based on how badly they want them. And on a set date, you get an envelope with only one program listed on it - your "match" and that is where you are bound to attend. On that day, the program also finds out which of its applicants matched with them and will be starting their program next year.

It's really confusing. You could probably choose where you want to attend if you were to do general dentistry. For example, if a NY student wants to do a general dentistry residency (GPR or AEGD) in Florida, and they apply only to all the programs in Florida (lets say 10) and get a few interviews (like 5), the person has a really good chance of getting a residency in Florida. Maybe not exactly in Miami like the student wants, but still in Florida. But a specialty program would be really hard to arrange like this since some cities/states only offer 1 program in the specialty.

Also, to add to the mess, some programs don't participate in the whole Match system (some general residencies, many Perio, Endo, Prostho). Those programs usually interview you and let you know if you are in or not before the whole Match thing - that way if you say yes to them, you drop out of the Match because you already have an acceptance.

The whole point of the system (Match or non-Match) is to prevent applicants from hoarding multiple acceptances. I mean, look at the pre-dents on this board. There are plenty of people putting deposits down at one school, although they still have their fingers crossed for some other school (which is ok, since that's how dental school acceptances work). With this system, everyone only gets one acceptance and it is to a program you wanted to attend a little bit anyways, or else you wouldn't have applied there.

Sorry to ramble, I hope this answers your question.

 

[gryffindor]

tinkerbell - don't worry, I'm not going to make my plans based on hearsay. Next semester, I plan on contacting UCSF and asking them how they do post-grad admissions to see what their side of the story is.

You're right, there shouldn't be any secret about it, but I don't think they are always giving you the whole truth. Example - I contacted a specialty program where the director told me "We don't interview students straight out of school. You really need GPR or work experience to be considered here." I said thank you, I appreciate knowing that. Yet there is a senior at my school who got interviewed by this very same program. I asked how he possibly got an interview after what the director told me- his response "My dentist knows someone on the admissions committee." Great, so they made an exception for having an inside connection.

I could go on and on. But once you get involved in the whole post-grad admissions thing, you'll realize they don't always do what they say.

 

[flat4]

Griffin,
Thanks for the info. So you're saying that it's NOT crucial for me to go to a school in the same state? That whole application procedure does seem very complicated but I guess that's when you get when you have only a few number of spots open. One more question...do all specialty programs emphasize the clinical aspect of their specialty or are there more "academic" or "research" oriented programs like in normal dental school?