So you want to be a dentist, but you attend Johns Hopkins University – a school where it’s safe to say the majority of the student body is pre-medical. Finding a pre-dental student on campus is pretty rare; almost as rare as finding a pre-veterinarian student, but yes, they do exist!
We’ve all been to the dentist at one point in our lives, but until recently, I’ve never really thought about how important dentists and dentistry really is. Healthy teeth and healthy gums are essential to having an overall
healthy body. Most people don’t know, but gum disease has been found to have a direct link to heart disease. What a scary thought! Just by visiting your dentist every six months for a check-up and cleaning could prevent some serious illnesses and diseases.
Of course everyone knows that it’s great to be a doctor, and that there will always be a need for doctors so you’ll always be able to find a great job, but what about being a dentist? Here are some things to awesome things to consider when thinking about dentistry:
1. The job market for general dentists from now until 2020 is expected to grow by 21% (which is faster than average for all occupations!) So like there will always be a demand for doctors, there will always be a demand for dentists as well.
2. There is more than one way to practice dentistry – several dentists own their own practices, work in hospitals and clinics, and in small offices with a small staff. Several dentists even spend time abroad, which is definitely something I want to do!
3. The path to becoming a dentist is a tough one. After acquiring a bachelor’s degree, there is still 4 more years of dental school, optional residency, and up to 4 years of extra training for those of us who want to pursue a specialty.
4. The median annual salary for dentists in the United States was $146, 920 in 2010. Remember though, salaries depend on years in practice, location, specialty, and the amount of hours worked. Usually a dental career is a full-time one until retirement (when several dentists continue to work part-time) but working evenings and weekends are not always a requirement. [pagebreak]
For the few of us here at Hopkins that have decided to pursue a pre-dental education, we’ve got it pretty rough for several reasons. Even though the Office of Pre-Professional Advising does help by having a few pre-dental things here and there (including a great pre-dental advisor), there is no pre-dental society or club on campus (which maybe I should get started), the majority of resources are geared towards pre-med students, dental research is difficult to come across, and finding dental shadowing and volunteer opportunities is a challenge all by itself. Here are some things that I’ve done to make the pre-med atmosphere here at Hopkins work for me:
1. Even though there are not any pre-dental clubs or societies on campus, I’ve still joined some of the medical clubs on campus. Any type of volunteering that is geared towards the community in a medical setting is beneficial. These opportunities might not always (or ever) be in a dental environment but there are still many things to be learned!
2. Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of “medical school mock interviews” and seminars giving tips for getting into medical school and building your resume. I’ve actually gone to a few of them because getting into dental school is just like medical school – it’s competitive, selective, and is a huge commitment. All of the tips that pre-med students get can be applied to dental school. The only difference is between the MCAT
and DAT. I’m sure you’ve all seen the posters for practice MCATs and LSATs around campus by Kaplan. Well, Kaplan offers DAT preparation too, but because it’s not very popular at Hopkins it’s not advertised. All I did was ask, and I found out there was also Kaplan DAT prep and they were offering a free practice test, so cool!
3. I still haven’t figured out a way to find dental research. I’ve been looking around and the closest I think I’ll ever get to dental research is through some type of oral surgery research. So my advice for that bit is the same that my pre-dental advisor gave me – just find some type of research that you enjoy. Any research is good research.
4. I’ve been very fortunate in finding good places to shadow dental professionals. It’s a very difficult and discouraging process. Privacy laws are so crazy now that no one wants to let you in. Just keep trucking and someone will eventually say yes. This was so hard at first, but if you set your mind to it, you’ll find somewhere to shadow and you’ll definitely appreciate every minute of it. The Hopkins pre-professional advising website has a great e-mail example to send to dental offices where you hope to shadow, make sure you check it out!
In a school full of pre-med students, it’s tough being a pre-dental student. I can imagine it’s actually tough in general because dentistry is less popular all around. You just have to take initiative and delve deep into the resources we do have in order to find something that will work for you. It’s been such a rewarding experience, and to anyone interested in medicine, I definitely recommend taking a peek into the wonderful world of dentistry! If anyone has any other tips or resources everyone should know about, I’d love to hear them!
Sources:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm#tab-1
http://web.jhu.edu/prepro/health/predental.html
Images:
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Healthcare_g355-Dentist_With_Ins…
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Dentistry_g416-Dental_Tools_And_…