See you around the halls.

Ben Johnson

When should I start to apply?

How long does it take to fill out AADSAS?

What materials do I need for AADSAS?

How much does it cost?

How many schools should I apply to?

Where do I put my extracurriculars?

What extracurriculars should I include?

What do you think of my AADSAS essay?

etc.

Feel free to ask/discuss here!

What should me grades look like?

Where should i go to school?

Does a community college look OK?

Where should I apply?

What undergraduate classes should I take for dental school?

How much does dental school cost?

How much can a dentist expect to make?

Should I take summer classes while in collegel?

Should I work while in college?

etc.

Please feel free to ask or discuss these various questions here in this forum.

I think of my uncle who had 5 kids all under the age of 5, went through dental school, got a 4.0, then completed his ortho residency at the mayo clinic in Rochester, MN

If he can do that, than anyone can do anything. Loans, a little work on the side, frugal living, and a lot of praying!

At Temple we are required to do 12 days of outreach.  Outreach is when we travel to a satellite clinic off of the dental school campus to provide dental care.  There are about 6 places to choose from.  Some are located further away, some are downtown and there are a couple of pediatric dental clinics to choose from.  One clinic is located inside the dental school and is associated with the Ryan White funding.

I have worked a couple of times in our Ryan White clinic (called the Rosenthal Clinic) and didn't have much success with getting any points.  At Temple, each procedure we do is worth a certain amount of points, so each day you want to be working towards getting points because you need points to graduate.  All I did in the Rosenthal clinic was adjust 5 dentures.  A few of my classmates however, were able to get many points during their 'duty days' in Rosenthal.

I went to another clinic called CVIM (Community Volunteers in Medicine) last week and did a class II amalgam on #30, a class III composite on #8, and a cleaning.  I don't think we get points for the cleaning while off campus, but I was able to get a few operative points.  It was slightly frustrating because there were only 3 patients all day long and I felt like I could have seen some more patients.  The patients I did see only had one lesion each, so there was no chance to do multiple restorations.  With outreach duty days it depends on the day and luck of the draw with regards to amount of points you will get.  A classmate of mine went to CVIM a few days before me and got close to 30 points.  I got 5 points during my experience at CVIM for comparison.

Today I went to Doc Breslers Cavity Busters Pediatric Dentistry clinic.  It was an eventful day.  I started out with a simple class I composite on #30.  Then moved on to another girl who needed four sealants on all her 1st molars followed by an extraction of #Q.  The sealants went fine.  When I got to the extraction I placed the topical all over the tooth and then asked the girl how many prizes she wanted.  She said she wanted four.  So I replied with, "Well, how about we give you EIGHT!"  Right when her brain was processing the amount of prizes she was going to get (I could tell by the size of her eyeballs), I used some gauze to extract tooth Q.  Squeeze, twist, pull. She didn't even know it was out until I told her.  I love the mind games in pediatric dentistry.  I love using those same mind games on adults.  After that another patient needed an extraction of T.  Then the next patient needed a pulpotomy and SSC.  So in 4 hours at the outreach clinic I was able to do what takes 4 months in our dental school pediatric clinic.  2 extractions, 4 sealants, one occlusal composite, and a pulpotomy and SSC.

What makes the dentistry smoother at these outreach clinics?   The patient has already been treatment planned, the teeth are clean, and the next step is where the dentist comes in.  It was a nice experiance to sit in the chair, numb the child, wait 5 minutes, do the dentistry, and then move on to the next patient, all the while you have an assistant with you retracting and suctioning and giving moral support. :)  Our dental work is still regulated, but it goes much smoother vs. the dental school where there are more students per faculty member, no assistants, and we are required to do everything. (set up, break down, insurance, billing, hygiene, scheduling, etc.)  I am not knocking dental school, because it is what it is, but it was nice to get a good look at what lies at the end of the tunnel.

First time poster here. Thanks for all of work work giving us a peek into the life of a DMD student.

I'm 28 and thinking about going to dental school. We have no kids but would like to by time I'm 30, so we'll be in the same boat. I'm worried about how to cover all of our costs and would like to hear how you've done it.

If you're wife stays at home and you have 3 kids, are you just taking out stundent loans to cover life expenses?

Thanks!

Starting out in the clinic can be a frustrating experiance.  Even after a year I still find that I am getting frustrated every now and then.  I imagine the frustration does not end after dental school or residency.  In many ways you are prepared to do dentistry, in many ways you are not.  At first it can be frustrating.  You are practicing for the first time a lot of different aspects of dentistry in a school setting.  Patient management, quality control vs. efficiency (ie: how can I do my very best in a short amount of time), and general knowledge about how to perform clinical dentistry are some things that come to mind. There are a few things to remember when you are in dental school that will decrease your frustrations.

• Remember that thousands of other dental students across the country graduate each year and EVERY single one of them at one time or another felt frustrated. "I am not going to graduate" "I will never get enough points" "This case is too hard" "I cannot stand scaling another quadrant" "All this debt..." ETC. Guess what? The majority of then DO graduate and are doing just fine.
• When a professor gets down on you for not knowing something don't take it personally.  Brush it off as something you didn't know, but now do, and the next time someone asks you will know.  No one ever remembered everything that was said in every class.  I like to think from the instructors point of view.  They have been teaching the same concept in the same dental school to the same kids for 15-35 years and are probably bored of repeating what the ferrule effect is or how to write a med consult.  It's not personal.
• As long as you are doing your very best then why worry?  I have been getting very frustrated with my lack of anterior endo's  I have not done a single root canal in dental school.  I have been in the clinics for almost an entire year.  I don't know if it is bad luck, karma, or whatever but every case i bring to endo is either a referral, an extraction after caries control (non-restorable), or the tooth doesn't need a root canal (the tooth had a PARL but ended up testing vital - cemento ossesous dysplasia, etc).  In the past two weeks I am 0 - 5 in trying to get an anterior endo...but I am doing my absolute best, no regrets when I fall asleep and this does wonders when trying to fight frustrations.
• Take a break.  Sit down, take a deep breath, get a snack and a drink, and make a list of everything on your to do list, and start to do them.  Writing things down in a list helps your brain organize everything you have to do and decreases the frustration of thinking you have a million things to do.  Sometimes when I do this I find out that my list is only 3 items long and I have been stressing out over nothing.
• When all else fails and you are at your brink, go volunteer in oral surgery and extract some teeth.  I find this to be very relaxing.  Maybe I am weird, but it works.

If you have anything that you find to be frustrating and something you do (don't write "drink lots of alcohol") please comment below.

Until then need to hunt for scholarship, all the one that I looked up the deadline passed maybe I will have better luck next yr.

P.S. A moment of silence for my laptop and bang recycle can it go