Applying to both Medicine and dentistry

I'm currently a year 12 student and I want to apply to both medicine and dentistry as I love the patient care aspect in both careers. I was wondering if its possible for me to apply to Universities that don't look at the personal statement like Manchester in order for me to apply to both courses?Could I apply to both medicine and dentistry at Manchester or would this sabotage my chance at getting any offers?

Reply 1

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Unclear whether a single uni will necessarily see you've applied to both, but given how ferociously competitive dentistry is (and how very competitive medicine is) it seems like a significant gamble for no clear benefit. If Manchester for example do have any central admissions process which notifies each department you've applied to both, could this affect their perception of your commitment to the course, and could that affect your likelihood of being accepted? Possible.

More to the point, both careers require strong commitment to that career and resilience in the face of adversity in that career path. They know plenty of students will meet the requirements and be interested in both, they want to see people who have made a full commitment to the one path though. Liking "patient care" in both careers is a bit arbitrary - there's patient care in nursing, radiography, physiotherapy, etc etc as well. Why aren't you also applying to those courses? In any event, you need to do work experience for either course and I'd strongly suggest doing a good amount in both areas to get a better sense of what the actual job is like at different points in each career to have a stronger basis for comparing the two.

I can't really see a good rationale for applying to both. It's not even clear you have a good rationale for applying to either based on what you indicated. You've made vague allusions to patient care (which is part of every healthcare profession), but chosen medicine and dentistry as your targets, coincidentally the careers in that area regarded as "prestigious" conventionally and considered (rightly or wrongly) as well paying. You will likely need a much more convincing and specific set of reasons for doing either one which likely do not overlap (because realistically almost any overlapping aspect of the two careers leads naturally to the question of "ok what about these other careers/degrees which involve the same thing? Why not those?").

Reply 2

McGinger

You need to work out which subject you do actually want to do.

Plan a gap year. Get a job in a care-home and think carefully about whether you want to do Med or Dent - and why.

Reply 3

iwanttobeamedic.

Original post by Starry_nights238

you can do it, it'll just be a bit difficult, you'd need to select unis for one that doesn't look at the personal statement, and no, unis are not aware of where you apply, so there is no need to worry about that. For example, you can do a personal statement for medicine and apply to dental unis that don't focus on it, or vice versa.