I studied dentistry and medicine, ask me anything.

With regard the thread title..... Why?

With regard the thread title..... Why?

it's super common to become a dental SURGEON. it's only half the time of normal med school. I guess op loved med school more than dental school haha

So, I don't know if I would say it's 'super common' to do a medical degree after dental school, probably around 30 people each year across the UK do it.

The other thing is that Dentist = Dental Surgeon, they're the same thing seeing as a dentist IS a surgeon. Just depends on where you are as to what people like to refer to themselves as.

There are also Oral Surgeons - single qualified dentists who have chosen to specialise in oral surgery, usually by undertaking further training in hospital (taking teeth out, biopsies, implants, cyst enucleation etc.)

Then finally there are oral and maxillofacial surgeons - dual qualified medical/dental - OMFS surgeons can undertake the entire scope of practice of oral surgeons, as well as deal with head, neck and facial trauma, oral, head, neck and skin cancer, salivary gland surgery, jaw joint surgery, craniofacial deformity, jaw surgery, clef lip and palate and aesthetic and reconstructive facial surgery.

Where are you doing the 3 year accelerated programme.

Hi all,

I used to post a lot on here years ago (like over 10 years ago, when most of you were in primary school!!) I came here looking to find information about applying to dentistry. To be honest I had totally forgot this website even existed, a lot has happened in my life since 2011. For some reason I got a random personal message yesterday and it reminded me of this forum, so, for a bit of nostalgia I came back for a look. I have to say, some things never change and most of the threads and questions are exactly the same! So I thought I'd throw something a bit new into the mix and offer this little question and answer session, now that I have a bit of experience and knowledge to share with people.

As the title says. I studied dentistry, worked for a few years as a foundation dentist and then 2 years as a dental core trainee in oral and maxillofacial surgery and now I'm in my final 5 months of medical school.

Ask me whatever you want. I don't know much about dentistry applications anymore, so don't ask me anything about entry requirements or whether 'i think you have a chance of getting in'. But i can talk about dental school life, working as a dentist, the differences between medicine/dentistry and, of course, my chosen future career - Oral and Maxillofacial surgery.

Hope you all find this a helpful thread.

Cheers,
Ryan.

Hi all,

I used to post a lot on here years ago (like over 10 years ago, when most of you were in primary school!!) I came here looking to find information about applying to dentistry. To be honest I had totally forgot this website even existed, a lot has happened in my life since 2011. For some reason I got a random personal message yesterday and it reminded me of this forum, so, for a bit of nostalgia I came back for a look. I have to say, some things never change and most of the threads and questions are exactly the same! So I thought I'd throw something a bit new into the mix and offer this little question and answer session, now that I have a bit of experience and knowledge to share with people.

As the title says. I studied dentistry, worked for a few years as a foundation dentist and then 2 years as a dental core trainee in oral and maxillofacial surgery and now I'm in my final 5 months of medical school.

Ask me whatever you want. I don't know much about dentistry applications anymore, so don't ask me anything about entry requirements or whether 'i think you have a chance of getting in'. But i can talk about dental school life, working as a dentist, the differences between medicine/dentistry and, of course, my chosen future career - Oral and Maxillofacial surgery.

Hope you all find this a helpful thread.

Cheers,
Ryan.

Which of the 2 do you prefer and why,?

I also finished 10 years of uni life which I started in 2012. I finished my A levels in 2011 and used to post on this forum a lot.
How do you feel about letting go of the student life?

What encouraged you to do the extra years of school after denstistry?

I get asked this quite a lot, and I always find it quite a difficult question to answer well. The problem is that I am at a very different life stage doing medicine compared to dentistry and because of my background I am now fairly focussed on my future career, meaning that my approach to medical school is very different than my approach to dental school was, or the approach of many of my undergraduate/GEP peers. For example, I learn what I need to learn for exams in medical school but I know that certain aspects of the course will probably never feature in my working life again, and so I understandable am less interested in diving deep into those.

When I was in dental school I was like a sponge, I absorbed knowledge about every aspect of dentistry that I could, I grabbed every opportunity with both hands, no matter which speciality etc. This, i think is the right way to approach an undergraduate degree, by treating it as an opportunity to gain exposure to as much as possible, and to broaden experience and interest in your chosen field. My approach to medicine however, is basically to get through as smoothly as possible doing the minimum work and without ever failing anything. I spend at least as much time working as a locum in hospital, as I do in medical school. Income is far more important to me.

With all of that in mind...here are a few observations which I've tried to make impartially:

Dentistry
- Far more personal responsibility, you start seeing and treating your own patients from year 2/3 onwards and there is a real sense of professional and clinical responsibility towards them. If you don't show up or do the work, no one else will do it and another human is being let down or hurt if you mess up. This really concentrates the mind and draws you into your learning in a way that you just don't get in medicine.
- I was far busier and more focussed as a dental student, and I (this may be controversial) think that dental students are usually busier than medics, this was certainly true when comparing myself to the medics i lived with back in university. There is this constant sense with dentistry that when you graduate in 5 years, that you need to know how to do the job independently. You're constantly told that as a foundation trainee in dentistry you have a surgery, a nurse and your own list of patients to treat. Very different from being a foundation doctor where you're part of a much larger team, with many more senior clinicians and nurses.
- Dentistry is far more hands on, this seems obvious but you really do develop your surgical and patient communication/management skills at an incredible rate. Most 5th year dental students can perform a surgical tooth extraction, a root canal or a crown preparation - all of these are complex procedures requiring hours of practice and incredible precision. I know a lot of 5th year medical students who can't really take blood or place a cannula, let alone anything else more complex than this. Of course there will be exceptions to this, and it's also not really the point of medical training either, but it's certainly a noticeable difference. You see it as well with communication skills - dental students talk to patients almost every day and are experienced at breaking bad news (within dentistry) and talking through diagnoses, treatment options and risks/benefits etc. Whilst there is communication skills teaching in medical school, the students just don't have the same kind of relationship with their patients because they're generally speaking to them as an outside observer, rather than as the clinician who is about to perform a procedure on them.
- Lifestyle - this is more post degree than in uni, but it goes without saying that dentists earn more and have more free time, almost without fail compared to medics. This becomes ever more important as you get older and build a family.


Medicine
- The absolute variety and depth of the medical field is astonishing. It's a bit of a cliche to say that Dentistry is essentially just focussed on the mouth and surrounding structures, but it is kind of true. Dentists do have to have a very good level of basic medical knowledge and often are far more clued up on general medical stuff than people realise. However, they obviously don't cover medical issues in half as much detail as you do on an actual medical degree. This has a few effects - in dentistry you really feel like you know your area. You feel like a developing expert from quite early on, whereas in medicine because the field is so massive, you have this sense that you kind of know nothing about anything! In reality, you do know a lot, but you know a lot of specialty areas in a small amount of detail, without having significant depth in any of them. This is just the purpose of general medical training, you specialise much later on.
- Placements are more varied but generally you'll spend less time on placement than a day in dental school. It's quite common for students to attend a morning ward round and then go home. Whereas in dental school you're generally doing at least 9-5 on clinic days, and you can't really get off early as you have patients to see.
- If you're not sure what you want to do medicine is great as there is such variety, you can do almost anything! From crazy surgery, to neonatal medicine, anaesthetics, general practice, pathology, radiology. There is every kind of combination of hands on/hands off, patient facing, non-patient facing, chilled out/crazy busy. Whatever you want to suit pretty much any personality. Whereas dentistry intrinsically has far less variety within it, usually you will be doing some form of operative dentistry in whatever speciality you end up doing, there are some exceptions to this though.

There's so much more i could say, I've only really scratched the surface of the similarities/differences there. But I already haven't really answered your question!

I would say that if you came to me now and said you could only do one degree - dentistry would be my choice. I love the hands on aspect and really I'm only doing medicine so that I can become and OMFS surgeon. Medicine is amazing, but the working environment in the NHS and the lifestyle is pretty awful. Dentistry, although not perfect, offers better pay, flexible working and the ability to set your own schedule. The same is broadly true of general practice and some other specialties in medicine too...but I prefer working with my hands and the quick predictable results that dentistry provides for patients. It's so tremendously gratifying to help someone out of toothache with a 15 minute procedure, or to complete transform their smile and self confidence with a few fillings/veneers etc. And my personal favourite, helping an anxious dental-phobic patient to overcome their fear and have a positive experience. However, I felt I always wanted a bit more from life than just dentistry, and luckily for me I didn't have to choose and was able to just do both!!

Hope that's been helpful, sorry if it was a bit long and rambley!!
Ryan.

Hi all,

I used to post a lot on here years ago (like over 10 years ago, when most of you were in primary school!!)

Wow, congratulations, that is a very long time as a student! There's a guy on my course who's just finishing his 11th year as a student, crazy! He did biomed, dentistry then medicine. All at the same uni too haha.

To answer your question, I feel fine about it. I love being a student and the flexibility that it gives me. But I've been in full time work before too and enjoyed that also. My time as a medical student hasn't felt anything like when I was an undergraduate, probably because I still work 24-48 hours per week as a locum on-call in hospital. It feels more like on-the-job training to be honest. I have enjoyed being a medical student but frankly I wont miss it. I resent paying the exorbitant fees and I don't think most undergraduates get good value for money these days. I also get frustrated with how low the medical course is pitched, obviously this is an exceptional case because of my background, but it still feels very patronising at times. Given that the 3-year accelerated pathway I'm on has been in place for a few decades now, I would have hoped they'd built some flexibility into it and tailored the course slightly, but alas...no.

So, in summary...i'm fairly ambivalent. Yes I've enjoyed being a student again. The extra discounts are pretty fun, but fundamentally I'm ready to crack on with my surgical training. If i could have done this degree in 2 years, i would have. How are you feeling about it?

Personally I've found your posts on this thread really interesting, insightful and well balanced. I'm not involved in the medical field myself, but my daughter wanted to be a dentist from the age of 6 until the age of 16, when she was put off by work experience... she's now a junior doctor. I always thought though that she may have had a more flexible life/work balance as a dentist.

An interesting point you made about breaking bad news, which I think is probably generally true, although my daughter started work at the height of the pandemic and at one point as an F1was breaking devastating news to loving relations on a daily basis..... there was just too great a volume of bad news to go around for the available staff.

Great to hear someone talk as you do, with so much enthusiasm about your career. Are there opportunities for you to pass on your experience to younger students through teaching? You sound like just the sort of person they could learn from.

Some very detailed answers on this thread. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint.

I was wondering what you thought about Barts? QMUL is one of the dental uni's I've applied to (which is "joint" with Barts), so I'm sure you've been to both universities? From small details like administration (which I hear KCL is bad at these days) and lecturer quirks & reliability to general opinions (e.g. clubs, diversity, holiday timings and durations etc). Any amount of detail would be interesting and no doubt useful.

Also, more of a curious question, was applying to the accelerated medicine course easier than Dentistry as it was the same university? As in, no need for interviews, sitting UCAT etc, similar to when advancing to the same sixth form as secondary school? And do you think this extra knowledge that the faculty had of you from your 5 years there increased your chance of being accepted to the course (you mentioned it being 10-ish places but also about 30-ish people in the UK doing it a year, and listed a lot of universities which have varying place numbers, so I'm unsure about how competitive the degree is).

Personally, I'm very much in the position where I'd rather learn medicine but rather practice dentistry, for a lot of the same reasons you listed earlier regarding lifestyle and NHS, so while I don't think I'll move onto Max Fax (tuition fees are a pain), I'd like to at least have it as a solid possibility if I decided to do it in the future.