Need advice on foreign trained dentistry

[Ali S]

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if I could get some advice on this forum regarding a HUGE dilemma I'm facing regarding the future of my education. I have taken a rather unorthodox path towards practicing dentistry and now I'm at a stage where I'm doubting my decision.

My story:

I immigrated to Canada somewhat recently, and completed my high school here. I was set on becoming a dentist in my final year of high school and started looking at my options. As most of you might know, some universities abroad offer dentistry at a bachelor level (so you can get into a BDS program straight from high scohol) and this is the path I chose (studying outside Canada of course). What I didn't realize at that time was how difficult it is to go through the equivalency process and I've heard (and witnessed) quite a lot of horror stories about how the majority of foreign trained dentists don't make it here.

To further complicate the situation - due to some personal and 'discriminative' reasons, I am no longer able to go back to my university (or that country for that matter) to finish off my BDS degree. I am 3 years in (its a 5 year program) and I need some advice on what to do next...

1. Should I try getting a transfer to another country (most likely the country of which I'm a citizen) and try finishing off the BDS degree and then coming to Canada for conversion?

2. Should I get a transfer my credits to an undegrad science program here and THEN apply for dental school?

3. At this point I'm thinking of just starting uni over and pretty much change my field.. I'm just so disheartened by the whole situation..

Can someone give me some sound advice? I'm sorry if it looks like I tried taking the 'easy' way but at that time it really did feel like the right decision.

Any advice is well appreciated. Thanks.

[cookiemonster99]

Do you have PR status or Citizenship in Canada? Or are you still on a visa?

If you have PR status in Canada I'd say apply to a university in Canada and try to get some credits towards a science degree and when ur finished then apply to Canadian dental schools. I personally think this would be the easiest way for you to salvage the situation if u still want to practice dentistry in Canada. 

transferring to another country to try and complete a degree that you started in another country sounds too complicated and probably won't happen due to politics and jurisdiction issues. I also think it's highly unlikely it can be achieved-but i could be wrong. 

what country did you start your dentistry degree and what country were you looking to transfer to try and complete it?