Applying to Med School as a Dental Student

[sangkak]

Hi Everyone!

I was looking for some advice on applying to med school as quite the unusual candidate. I am currently a dentistry student and want to enter medicine instead. I got accepted into dental school after 2 years of undergrad, had a cumulative undergrad gpa of 3.97 and pre-req gpa of 3.97 as well. I don't have GPA for the years I spent in dentistry because my school follows pass/fail system. I'm wondering if anyone has gone through the same thing or knows of someone who has followed this route? I should also mention that from finishing the first two preclinical years of dentistry, I have an undergrad degree in medical sciences, which should allow me to apply for medical schools that require a degree. I'm also not sure if I should try taking the next school year off, or continue my studies in dentistry while applying for medicine..

 

Thanks for the advice!

[TheCat'sMeow]

Hmmm... From your medical sciences degree it kind of sounds like you're coming from uofa (correct me if I'm wrong). In that case I'm sure you're aware of ppl that apply for med usually after the 1st year of dent. They got to go to 2nd year med after they got in bc the med and dent program cross over for the first 2years.

[Mithril]

I'm just curious: what made you wanna switch from dent to med?

[sangkak]

Hmmm... From your medical sciences degree it kind of sounds like you're coming from uofa (correct me if I'm wrong). In that case I'm sure you're aware of ppl that apply for med usually after the 1st year of dent. They got to go to 2nd year med after they got in bc the med and dent program cross over for the first 2years.

 

I didn't know UBC have the same type of deal going on. I plan on writing my mcat in September which only leaves me 5 weeks to prepare so I'm not sure if it is worth rescheduling mcat to end of august to meet requirements for ubc med. Probably not..

[sangkak]

I'm just curious: what made you wanna switch from dent to med?

 

I went into dentistry without much thought. Having always been told that I would make a good dentist by people close to me, I was convinced to give it a try. It took me a couple years but I've realized this wasn't for me. I don't have much interest in the field itself and it is so narrow that I feel like there is no way to make it work. I enjoy doing research and it is also something that is lacking in dentistry. The scene is small and there is not enough recognition or incentives. I also dislike the business aspect of dentistry. I would hate to be distracted by having to make enough money to pay all the staffs and having to stay after work to manage other tasks which I think are all distractions from servicing patients. I feel that in medicine - because it is so wide - there must be something that I will be interested in and this way I would get more joy from the work I do for the patients. Most of all.. I do not like the neck and shoulder pain I get from practicing dentistry... I just feel so blessed to be young enough to be able to make a decision like this and pursue it. Hope this satisfies your curiosity.

[apache]

Wow, this is so interesting, I'm switching from med to dentistry and my situation sort of mirrors yours in many ways. You can always just associate and not have to worry about the business aspect of dentistry (I met a dentist last week who finished in 02 and had been associating since since he didn't want to be tied down). In medicine a lot of political, financial (government budget) factors also prevent you from giving the best care to your patients, so although there's a private/public divide there's still that aspect to it as well.

 

Interestingly for me, I genuinely enjoy pure medicine, it's more all the stuff that comes with it that bugs me, I actually plan to continue reading my Toronto Notes and USMLE 1 books when applying to dent out of interest.

 

I guess it shows how different we all are, and how there's no perfect career for everyone.

 

One thing I honestly would like to see happen though is greater accessibility to learn about the medical/dental professions before you enter them, this is something that's very difficult to do as an undergraduate, but would be very beneficial to people like us who get our first taste of the respective discipline once we're already in the discipline.

 

I couldn't agree with your second last sentence more though, I felt I gained a lot personally from my experience in medicine and in my experience in undergrad pursuing medicine/clinical psych and can take many positives away while still being young and free, as you would say

 

I went into dentistry without much thought. Having always been told that I would make a good dentist by people close to me, I was convinced to give it a try. It took me a couple years but I've realized this wasn't for me. I don't have much interest in the field itself and it is so narrow that I feel like there is no way to make it work. I enjoy doing research and it is also something that is lacking in dentistry. The scene is small and there is not enough recognition or incentives. I also dislike the business aspect of dentistry. I would hate to be distracted by having to make enough money to pay all the staffs and having to stay after work to manage other tasks which I think are all distractions from servicing patients. I feel that in medicine - because it is so wide - there must be something that I will be interested in and this way I would get more joy from the work I do for the patients. Most of all.. I do not like the neck and shoulder pain I get from practicing dentistry... I just feel so blessed to be young enough to be able to make a decision like this and pursue it. Hope this satisfies your curiosity.

[lazyboy]

Wouldn't a title of DDS and MD be more appealing?

 

If I were you, I would complete DDS and then get MD later, it opens so many door.

 

Just like a lawyer that is also a MD.

[rmorelan]

Wouldn't a title of DDS and MD be more appealing?

 

If I were you, I would complete DDS and then get MD later, it opens so many door.

 

Just like a lawyer that is also a MD.

 

Which doors? Just to expand things I think there may be some barriers to applying both of them in a timely fashion.

[MD2015]

http://www.law.asu.edu/News/CollegeofLawNews.aspx?NewsId=2371

Three med students take on J.D.

08/21/2007

Three med students take on J.D.

 

 

Brian Braithwaite, Matthew Lahaie and

Thomas Parisi

Most students come to law school to learn to become attorneys, or perhaps to teach. But three new students plan to use their legal knowledge in a different field: medicine.

 

Brian Braithwaite, Matthew Lahaie and Thomas Parisi are enrolled in the M.D.-J.D. program, a unique educational collaboration launched in 2005 between the College of Law and Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minn. The trio last spring finished two years of coursework at Mayo and now will spend two years in law school, including the summer in between, before returning to Minnesota for two more years of medical school.

 

Ordinarily, obtaining separate medical and law degrees would require seven years of full-time study. But under the M.D.-J.D., students’ learning is shortened because the College offers courses at times Mayo does not and will accept a portion of the credit hours required for a J.D. from courses completed at the medical school.

 

The College’s first M.D.-J.D. student, Brian Wilhelmi, graduated from law school in May and is finishing medical school now. Its second student, Lindsay Evans, will graduate from law school this May and head back to Mayo.

 

At the end of six years, Braithwaite, Lahaie and Parisi will have earned two degrees enabling them to practice law and medicine.

 

“We are enormously proud of our M.D.-J.D. program with Mayo Medical School,” said Dean Patricia White. “It is unique in this country.

 

“It takes a special person to want to go through the rigors of a dual professional training program such as this, and to have a cohort of three coming in this fall, joining Lindsay Evans, who started last year, is wonderful.”

 

The young men are close friends and roommates, but they have very different personalities, interests and backgrounds.

 

Each had visited Arizona just once before moving to Tempe for law school.

“I feel very blessed that two of my classmates will be in the same class as me, and that we’re going through this experience together,” said Braithwaite, who is athletic, loves ’80s music and is the most extroverted of the three.

 

Born 25 years ago in Montreal, he grew up in Barbados, where his father, Sylvester, an obstetrician, ran a small hospital, while his mother, Anna Marie, worked as a nurse.

 

Braithwaite’s undergraduate degree from the University of Florida is in microbiology and cell science.

 

Following graduation, he took a year off to dabble in business, operating a donut shop and a print shop with his dad, before settling on medical school.

“I always knew I would go into some sort of service field, helping people,” he said. “As I grew up, I realized being a doctor was the best way, and it seemed natural because I grew up around health care.”

 

Braithwaite’s commitment to giving back to his community was instilled by his parents and by his Bahá’í faith. However, Braithwaite also had an interest in law school, and after White and Wilhelmi spoke to his medical school class last year about the M.D.-J.D., he knew he’d found a way to get the best of both worlds. His plan, though not firm, is to practice medicine and gain a greater understanding of malpractice issues and other pitfalls that his father has had to face.

 

“As a doctor, you have to have a legal background today or you’re going to be taken advantage of by people who see you as deep-pocketed,” Braithwaite said. “Later on in my career, I may be able to defend doctors against malpractice.”

 

At 28, Lahaie is the oldest of the trio, and he enjoys traveling, cooking, painting and, especially, the Boston Red Sox. He grew up in Medfield, Mass., but considers himself a Bostonian, and is looking forward to living in a big city, despite the heat.

 

“I like that Phoenix is a large metropolitan area, where Rochester is very small, 100,000 people,” he said. “I’m an urban individual, and I want to come back to that kind of environment.”

 

Since his youth, Lahaie has been interested in biology, science and medicine, but he also feels a strong pull toward human rights. These interests are reflected in his varied background, which includes being a teenaged counselor for the Massachusetts Audubon Society to handling employee benefits research for an office supplies corporation during a summer job in college.

 

As an undergraduate, Lahaie developed and taught an innovative molecular biology curriculum in China, and planned and implemented HIV/AIDS education programs for Physicians for Human Rights, U.S.A. Before attending medical school, he worked as a consultant, helping to develop an HIV/AIDS information network for the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention and pursued research aimed at understanding HIV evolution and its implications for vaccine development at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Law school will help him understand the big business side of medicine and malpractice issues plaguing that industry, and become familiar with the intersection of law and psychiatry, a field in which he’s interested. The degree also will broaden his career options to include academic researcher, hospital CEO or family doctor who advocates for his patients within a broken health-insurance system.

 

“There is a swath of reasons to do the M.D.-J.D., and I hope to pull out some useful experiences in all these areas,” Lahaie said.

 

Parisi may use the M.D.-J.D. as a vehicle to return someday to his birthplace, Washington, D.C., to influence public health policy. The ideal situation would be treating patients part time and working with national decision makers on revamping health care.

 

“Doctors at Mayo are constantly telling us, `Health care’s changing. It has to change, and your generation is the one that’s going to have to deal with it’,” said Parisi, 25. “In our medical training, we get exposed to the physician’s perspective, what doctors think patients need, but in terms of how to make that happen, there’s a gap in our education. Getting the M.D.-J.D. will fill that hole in my education.

 

“I’d like to be involved in opening lines of communication between doctors, lawyers and politicians and try to make sure decisions are made in the patients’ best interests and in the doctors’ best interests, and not just what looks good on paper.”

 

Like Braithwaite, Parisi grew up around medicine; his father is a neuropathologist who also teaches at Mayo, and his mother was a social worker in an oncology setting. He grew up in D.C., where he began playing the violin at age 2, and in Rochester, and earned two undergraduate degrees, in violin performance and in science, from Northwestern University.

Early on, Parisi thought he might enroll in music school, but after enduring four surgeries as a teenager for an inflamed large intestine and seeing the importance of medicine, Parisi went a different direction.

 

“I never even thought you could take out one of the major organs that people need to live and cure this disease that, before, I would have died from or gotten colon cancer eventually,” he said. “That changed my mind.”

Still, Parisi is looking forward to checking out the renowned College of Music at Arizona State University, and also enjoys swimming, soccer and cooking.

All three students have come to law school expecting their schoolwork to be as challenging as medical school, if in a different way.

 

“I’m looking forward to learning how to think and ask questions the way lawyers and politicians do,” Parisi said.

 

Said Braithwaite, “The first year of law school is supposed to be the hardest ever of all graduate programs. I do have the thought of, `How can it be harder than med school?’ But I think it’s because it’s more about analytical thinking than just memorizing facts.”

[rmorelan]

Sure that is law though. I can see the possibility there because medicine and law often overlap particularly in US.

 

There doesn't seem to be quite the same overlap of interactions between dentists and medical doctors(?)

[Adversary]

My wonderful friend did what you are thinking and is now starting med school. You should seek my friend out. My friend is the most qualified person for you to speak to as my friend can describe the hardship and struggles endured due to the decision of giving up dentistry to pursue medicine without the path ending up being simple and easy. This is the post written when my friend got in: http://premed101.com/forums/showpost.php?p=585496&postcount=85

 

Hi Everyone!

I was looking for some advice on applying to med school as quite the unusual candidate. I am currently a dentistry student and want to enter medicine instead. I got accepted into dental school after 2 years of undergrad, had a cumulative undergrad gpa of 3.97 and pre-req gpa of 3.97 as well. I don't have GPA for the years I spent in dentistry because my school follows pass/fail system. I'm wondering if anyone has gone through the same thing or knows of someone who has followed this route? I should also mention that from finishing the first two preclinical years of dentistry, I have an undergrad degree in medical sciences, which should allow me to apply for medical schools that require a degree. I'm also not sure if I should try taking the next school year off, or continue my studies in dentistry while applying for medicine..

 

Thanks for the advice!

[sangkak]

Wow, this is so interesting, I'm switching from med to dentistry and my situation sort of mirrors yours in many ways. You can always just associate and not have to worry about the business aspect of dentistry (I met a dentist last week who finished in 02 and had been associating since since he didn't want to be tied down). In medicine a lot of political, financial (government budget) factors also prevent you from giving the best care to your patients, so although there's a private/public divide there's still that aspect to it as well.

 

Interestingly for me, I genuinely enjoy pure medicine, it's more all the stuff that comes with it that bugs me, I actually plan to continue reading my Toronto Notes and USMLE 1 books when applying to dent out of interest.

 

I guess it shows how different we all are, and how there's no perfect career for everyone.

 

One thing I honestly would like to see happen though is greater accessibility to learn about the medical/dental professions before you enter them, this is something that's very difficult to do as an undergraduate, but would be very beneficial to people like us who get our first taste of the respective discipline once we're already in the discipline.

 

I couldn't agree with your second last sentence more though, I felt I gained a lot personally from my experience in medicine and in my experience in undergrad pursuing medicine/clinical psych and can take many positives away while still being young and free, as you would say

 

It's interesting how we came across each other's path while we are trying for things that are completely opposite.

 

Becoming an associate is a reasonable option, if one still enjoyed dentistry as a profession but not as a business. Frankly speaking I don't think I enjoy it as a profession either. The minute details we are required to achieve in our work really depresses me. I know people generally find it pleasing once they achieve these details. But for me, I feel depressed when I achieve them and miserable when I don't. I feel like I'm losing myself and probably almost lost myself.

 

Re: my second last sentence, by being younger I didn't mean going into dentistry after 2 years of undergrad I meant not being married and having a family that is depending on you to finish school and make money. If I finished my undergrad degree and had more time to think about what I really want to pursue, I probably would have gone into medicine.. I wish if this was the case because this could have saved the trouble.

[sangkak]

Wouldn't a title of DDS and MD be more appealing?

 

If I were you, I would complete DDS and then get MD later, it opens so many door.

 

Just like a lawyer that is also a MD.

 

Law and Medicine overlap in many areas such as policy making and malpractice which increases the potential application of having those two degrees but not so much in dentistry. Perhaps you can correct me if I'm wrong but having dual degree of DDS and MD only comes in handy if you were interested in becoming an oral surgeon. And in this case, usually you get a MD degree once you complete oral surgery specialty training in many dental schools.

 

What I'm trying to say is what would be the point of spending extra years to have two degrees when in the end you only have to choice one or the other in most cases? Could you elaborate on what you mean by "many doors"?

[sangkak]

My wonderful friend did what you are thinking and is now starting med school. You should seek my friend out. My friend is the most qualified person for you to speak to as my friend can describe the hardship and struggles endured due to the decision of giving up dentistry to pursue medicine without the path ending up being simple and easy. This is the post written when my friend got in: http://premed101.com/forums/showpost.php?p=585496&postcount=85

 

His story is incredible! I have pm him but not sure if he still goes on premed forum after being accepted into his program..

[Adversary]

That is not entirely true because UBC Dental students do not participate in the clinical courses taken by UBC Medical students in first year. So unless they are willing to squeeze that into a packed 2nd year schedule which I cannot imagine they would, you will likely do 1st year clinical over and then proceed to second year or redo all of first year. Also, depends on whether you get in right away or years further down the road.

 

I didn't know UBC have the same type of deal going on. I plan on writing my mcat in September which only leaves me 5 weeks to prepare so I'm not sure if it is worth rescheduling mcat to end of august to meet requirements for ubc med. Probably not..

[ThomasRolland]

Here is the problem: Med and Dent both require large time commitments.

 

You have just shown med school that you were not committed to the dent program. What do you think there reaction will be?

 

Having said that, u have an amazing GPA so you will probably be able to get in if you should choose to pursue this.