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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Dotsun Dental Podcast.
The focus of this podcast is to share undergraduate and down school experiences from dental students
and dental professionals through valuable discussions.
Through sharing the journeys and stories of current dental students and dental professionals,
our goals help you find answers to your guidance for your own pre-dental journeys.
We are super excited to have current Harvard dental student Asa Pisano as our guest today.
Asa graduated from Stony Brook University with a bachelor's degree in biology along
with a health medicine and society minor.
She's now a D1 student at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
Through her undergrad, Asa was a dental assistant, conducted research in paleobiology, volunteered
abroad, and helped her peers as a teaching assistant.
Asa, welcome to the podcast, how have the last few weeks of your D1 year been?
Thank you, I'm so excited to be here, especially with another Stony Brook student.
The past, we started a month ago now and honestly it's been crazy, it's been hectic,
super busy, but lots of fun.
I heard a lot of horror stories like when people got to dental school that their social
life kind of went out the window, the work was so much harder than like you've ever
had to deal with, and I honestly don't think that's the case.
Stony Brook's curriculum is extremely dense, really hard, and I feel like it's prepared
me really well for my classes thus far.
Honestly like the busiest part is the social aspect.
I think once you do get to grad school, especially dental school, everyone around you is pretty
much like-minded individuals.
You all have the same goals and aspirations, that's why you're in the same grad program.
So obviously like put a group of 35 like-minded individuals, it gets very exciting, like we're
always like doing something, whether it's studying together, eating together, going
out together, exploring Boston together.
So yeah, it's been hectic but great.
I got the test to the Stony Brook curriculum.
Yeah.
It's definitely like the STEM school.
So a lot of course like weedy out courses I guess you can call them.
So definitely raise your well for, I guess the DAT some people will talk about even just
I guess Harvard in general I guess.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you're from, where you
grew up, what you like to do for fun, kind of how you, you know, where you work.
Yeah.
I was actually born in Turkey but I grew up in New York so I've been in New York for the
past like 20 years now.
In terms of what I was, what I did in undergrad, Suraj you kind of touched upon it already.
I was a big, I played a big role in research in the anthropology lab and dental lab, oral
biology.
I was heavily involved in pre-dental society.
You know, basically just like good overall well-rounded extracurriculars but outside
of that is what's really important to me and that's like I love cooking.
I love working out.
Fitness is a big part of my life.
Whether it's running or weightlifting or yoga or Pilates.
That's something I stayed true to like basically throughout my undergraduate career.
I didn't want to lose track of my interests and kind of get lost in like academics.
I actually run a food blog on Instagram and that takes up a lot of my time.
That's something I started while also in undergrad and I still continue it now.
So I guess we'll touch upon it a little bit later but honestly like even in my interviews
that was the topic of conversation like what do you like to do outside of dentistry?
Because yeah I can like ramble about how I was a dental assistant and I did pre-dental
society and like all this stuff but the stuff that really matters is like who I am outside
of that.
Yeah.
I think like what you are outside of dentistry like is going to tell you down to school is
like what kind of doctor you're going to be.
Honestly how do you get your patients and that's going to ultimately make you successful.
So for sure.
I actually have like a piece of advice I want to share from a dentist that I worked with.
He was an endodontist and if you don't know what that is it's a dentist that specializes
in root canals and so they have like a very very busy office on Long Island him and his
wife and I asked him like do you ever get tired of doing root canals all day because
that's literally all they do root canals and he said well this is just my job like this
is not my life and he said I love fishing I love my kids I love being outdoors I love
spending time like I love bike rides.
He said that's my life like that's who I am root canals is my job like I do this I get
paid for it and I go home and I do things that I actually like to do so that really
stopped with me and I kind of carried that theme with me for like the next through my
interviews and like it's still with me like I keep that in the back of my head all the
time.
Yeah no we have a doctor at our office that we work at he's a prosodontist and like I
remember one time like he was doing a procedure on a patient and then on the TV was like the
discovery channel like the fishing you know like stream fishing channels so like and I
think he said that he was he used to he's like a fisherman like in his free time.
The dentistry is my second job.
Yeah.
He'd call to me like to think about that and even like my doctor I work with like currently
um I feel like his second job is like playing with his dog so just kind of doing his own
thing rather than dentistry I mean you know it's it's a great thing to have but I feel
like if you have things like that you can focus on besides it will make you even better
as a person so yeah like along those lines like so why dentistry why why did you decide
to like I don't mean to make this okay I don't mean to have like peter flashbacks like intervention
okay that is such an interview question honestly it's a good question to ask um and all pre
done should be asking themselves that because you're going to get it on your interview so
for me it was honestly early exposure when I was a child um I went back to Turkey a lot
for the summer and my aunt was a dental assistant so I spent a lot of time in the dental office
um just like interacting with the patients interacting with the doctor even just seeing
x-rays on the film and seeing like the different colored ortho rubber bands when you're seven
eight nine years old that's really interesting like at least it was to me and so I kind of
continued with that idea of like okay I really like the dental office because I saw the doctor
his patients loves him they didn't come in like upset they came in bubbly and they left
bubbly um just like it was always just a good atmosphere a positive atmosphere so when I
did turn sixteen and I got my working papers I just applied to work at a dental office and
that's what really like cemented my decision I was like okay I do want to be a dentist
and it was really just the close patient interaction the work-life balance that I saw with like
the doctors and like how flexible their hours were um the level of like trust between you
and your patient I thought that was really inspiring and honestly like getting to work
with your hands is something that's just so special to dentistry um obviously sometimes
in an interview they'll come up like why not medicine because you know obviously surgery
is also very like fine detail like hand skill oriented but then again it goes back to all
my other reasons work-life balance patient interaction I like the idea of like forming
a relationship with the patient and knowing their history and like knowing about their
family so those are just some of my reasons honestly the more I worked at the dental office
the more like reasons I could come up with um so if you are a pre-dent and you have the
opportunity to assist like a hundred percent and I'm sure Siraj can attest to that too
because he also assists it's it makes a big difference yeah I mean um you know I used
to shadow like a regular general dentist I'm normally just get like attractions you're
like um influence really like that but when you sort of like actually assisting and like
being in an office for 10 hours 11 hours a day yeah you understand like how important
it is to be to um that's only me patient but it's like you only you start to understand
like what a dentist actually does like a day-to-day life if you shadow yeah you're seeing what
they do but I think assisting hands-on you learn you know I really learn more about the
procedures but you learn like how to take care of a patient how to deal with actual people
because there's a variety of people right like um sort of like their moods or how they
all day how to deal with them um so it's it's like it's definitely top three experience
that I've been doing for the past two years so I think to anybody listening I feel like
you should really look into assisting even if it's like not like a surgery office um
at least get your from the door you know yeah um so can you like kind of talk about you
know I know you've been assisting for like old you've assisted for like over six years
right around six years so how did you how'd you yeah how'd you get your foot in the door
um and so it was actually um my dad went to that dental office and when he went for his
cleaning he just mentioned that his daughter was interested in dentistry so they're like
okay like as long as she's over 60 like we'll hire her basically so I didn't start off assisting
they trained me in sterilization and um basically like how to set up the rooms how to take down
the rooms like clean them sterilize them I learned all the instruments basically like how the schedule
works so they taught me like everything that was in the background and that's honestly a huge part
of the dental office and it running smoothly as well like even just having clean instruments from
patient to patient is like critical so I was trained in that um when I turned I think about a year in
they were like okay well we don't want you just like doing this anymore we want you to start assisting
so that's when they let me suction and I had also been taking x-rays they had trained me in that
pretty early on as well and so um the next step was basically just like suctioning really being
in the room with the doctor bringing in the patients and then I was just a full-time assistant
basically after that I wasn't really in the back at all obviously you know if you were going to
dental office you know that if you get a free second you have to go help out you have to like
clean the instruments and help out practice whatever um my office was very fast-paced so
we all we were always like communicating helping each other out it was a very like busy office
and I kind of just continued with that through school well um I know a lot of pre-nunce asked me
like okay how did you do it during school how did you manage it well the first thing was I went to
undergrad like close to home so I was able to keep the job for that long um the second major thing
was building trust with my employers like all my bosses all the doctors so if I did need to take
off some time to study for an important exam um like I did for the DAT they were very understanding
very accommodating so it all just comes down to like trust communication but you do need to get
your foot in the door and I think the biggest thing for pre-nunce is just you know be okay with
not assisting right away be okay with being trained for front desk or just sterilization or whatever
it might be and then work your way up like that I like sorry um I know I'm some medical
assisting as well I know a lot of people like sorry front desk and then transfer on yeah no
definitely and I think you know if you know some of our peers even in the pre-nunce society they have
done front desk and they also have done like actual assist thing and I think I think starting
early whatever whatever that is like front desk or if it's just like shadowing at an office this is
very important like even in your first year because I know I started like second semester
of freshman year and it started very early allowed me to work a lot in like that one summer I don't
really have any major commitments yeah working all that time and building your trust up with your
employers and your doctors kind of makes you look at invaluable asset to the to the practice
and so when you do get into your junior and see your end of sophomore year when you're really
busy they can understand that student you're put in the work here like they know you're not permanent
they know you didn't they knew you were going to be permanent from the beginning yeah student right so
it's kind of important to get your foot in the door and so yeah I think whatever you said is like
perfect um so you started assisting um you said like junior year of high school is that what you
started yeah it was going into my junior year of high school right so then so then I know there's
a lot of people that are not even aware I wasn't even aware of myself of like the BS EDS program
so can you like kind of touch upon that like how did you find that out and how did you kind of
you're yourself to to gain that position so um my high school who said like college fairs and so
I had heard from another peers mom to start going to that early so it was actually my
peer that was like let's go to this college fair I know it's like kind of early but let's just go
see what it's about so we did and I think that was honestly my sophomore year it was very early on
and um I had an idea that I wanted to do like health at that point like I wasn't I knew I liked
dentistry a lot but I was like not even sure if I was pre-med like I didn't really know what these
words were nobody did and my parents especially were no help whatsoever because they don't know the
process yeah so I kind of just was like okay let me just go ask these different colleges if they
have like pre-med pre-dental programs and I did and I went around to each table and I asked them
and it was actually stony brock that told me we have this program that guarantees you into dental
school they only take like two people a year the guy was super rude about it he's like we only take
two people a year it's very selective you have to be at like the top of your class I was like okay
that um so basically that's all it was it was just me going to different tables and collecting
information and then after I found out from that one table that this existed I started looking up
BS DDS in other schools on the east coast and tons of schools offer it NYU has it with Adelphi
U Penn has it with a bunch of other sister colleges um University of Pittsburgh
stony brock Buffalo and I'm sure there's more being added to this list I'm sorry I think Boston
University recently adopted one as well um so yeah I what I started doing was then I would find the
contacts for like the admissions for these dental schools and I was like hi like I'm a junior and
high school could you please give me more information about your BS DDS program so I think that was
something that what that I did um that was really helpful later on because when the when I did apply
to those programs they saw continued interest because I had emailed them like a year before
right um so I know a lot of pretense and don't know whether they want to do medicine or dentistry
or even anything at all like they don't know what career path they're choosing but if you do if you
are um an individual who does know early on start that research early on and start reaching out to
schools early on no definitely and I'd like I think my mentality in like 11th grade personally I just
like threw a dart at the dark or I was like I don't know what's going on but I'm just gonna
like apply to random colleges not really care just do whatever um but like it's really interesting
that you have like a targeted approach while you were already at my school just definitely like
has helped you um even as you got through college so um can you walk us through can you know but can
you like talk about your experience undergrad like how did you um you know you were in the the DDS
program of course um so how did you kind of structure your activities and undergrad around
you know like what you wanted in the future how did you kind of you know go about things so um just
to be like transparent I what like stony brook wasn't my first choice uh I was set ongoing to U Penn
and I had gotten into their BS DDS program which was seven years as opposed to eight um the reason
why I chose stony brook for my undergrad was dental school is super expensive uh it is more
expensive than medical school and becoming aware of this early on I was like okay I don't want to
drown in loans so that's why I ultimately chose the DDS program at stony brook um so then obviously
like knowing that there's other dental schools like Penn Columbia Harvard I didn't close my mind
off to those other options just because I'd gotten into stony brook dental school so I still took
you know the DDS program did have um conditional requirements you know you had to take all your
pre-rex and do well in them you had to maintain a certain GPA um you had to like score a minimal
DAT so you know I did all those but then I did extra so I just made sure my grades were
higher than the recommended GPA and I made sure I really studied hard for the DAT in the options
that I would not go to stony brook dental um in terms of research I was fortunate enough to as a
part of pre-dental society I found a research experience in my freshman year and I stuck with
that um you know basically until my junior year where I then switched to the dental school for
research and all the experiences I did all the extracurriculars I did was basically just geared
towards what do I like to do and what am I passionate about because when it comes time to like
apply I wanted to be genuine and I didn't want to seem like forced in terms of like oh um you
know I'm just checking off a box and I think I actually included that in my advice like when I
was filling out the form I said like don't do things just to fill out this check it's like
don't just check off boxes do things that you like to do um because those things like for example I was
um a tutor or at the academic success and tutoring center for three years and that's still
something that I do now I just work as a pre-dental coach instead of an academic coach which is it's
like the same thing you know the same thing different name I think that was really important and um
what else I guess in terms of volunteering that is something that I feel like is really really
important now for dental schools and I'm glad I started that early as well so you don't have to
know that you want to be a dentist or a medical student to start volunteering so I think that's a
big piece of advice that I would give to anyone at any point in their undergraduate career at this
point start volunteering because whatever you apply to even if it's like in the business realm even
if it's like the law realm volunteering in community service is huge and it's going to be a huge boost
to your application whatever you're doing so I don't know that was kind of like vague but I kind
of went off on a tangent there yeah let's listen yeah no no so we had um Dr. Kim on a couple like
uh weeks ago and she did talk about like quality over quantity in terms of yeah making off boxes
and stuff yeah um and personally even though it's going through my own experience I feel like
there are times where we're just checking boxes and like doing whatever because just because oh
it's just like a STEM club I'm just gonna join in and do it you know just because it sounds good but
like at the end of the day this is something where I'm excited to dedicate time to or something like
yeah it's like another class I feel like it's it's going so but kind of going off of that I would say
admissions committees like realize they figure out what's filler yeah you know like even based off
like you're the way you write about it in your application and they usually don't even ask you
about those things or sometimes they do I mean I've heard very different interview experiences
but in my own experience those like filler clubs that I like went to for a few meetings like half
a semester yeah I didn't get asked about them because they weren't important and if I was asked
about them I wouldn't really be able to like talk that meaningfully about it yeah oh again like
it's like you only have a limited amount of time before grad school be very picky and choose you
with what you dedicate your time to no for sure and I think something that everybody should consider
I mean even so for volunteering wise like I know you won the VAW trip right yeah I personally went
on it in Guatemala a couple weeks like in June or something so and that was like a very eye opening
experience and it wasn't something like it wasn't like a filler activity of course yeah like you
know who's you dedicate like 50 hours just hold two weeks or whatever and you're actually helping
under privileged communities that are completely that don't have the things that we have you know
here so can you talk about your I know you went on one of those trips as well can you talk a little
bit about your experience there yeah so ours was in Dominican Republic um in Harawa Koa which is just
it's not near the resorts let me just say that so it's not in a major city they don't really have
great access to health care or especially not dental care so we went we went and set up a
mobile dental clinic it was stationed in an elementary school so we had a lot of kids running
around while we were you know setting up and everything and for a week straight we just
started at 7 a.m. we were there until about 4 or 5 p.m. just giving free care to members of the
community and our role we we rotated roles but one day we would do vitals so we would take their
blood pressure we would take their glucose you know heart rate um respiration rate all all the
vitals basically um so I thought that was really unique because a lot of times it seems like there's
a disconnect between systemic health and oral health so I liked how you know you were basically
their full provider that day so we would do that and then there was once one role where you would
basically intake the patients get their patient history and I used whatever Spanish I knew from
high school and I thought that was super super meaningful because the second the members of
the community sense that you're making an effort even by like speaking their language they open up
so much more and that's why I think like that I don't want to like go too far into it but Harvard
offers like medical Spanish for that reason because they realize that that language can be a huge
barrier and not only did I see that in the Dominican Republic but I saw that at the dental
office back in New York as well you know if somebody if English is not their first language
it's very obvious that they don't want to be there and they're really uncomfortable with
like receiving dental care so without like going too far into it like that was one of our roles
too so like getting their patient history getting their name date of birth etc um there's obviously
like an assisting portion of it there was the serilization portion of it um and honestly like
you just went around you went through all the roles throughout the week and at the end of the
week there was like an education day where we got to interact with the students uh like the
little kids in the community basically and the students in the school um talking how to brush
their teeth and stuff it was just a very rewarding experience because you got to see firsthand the
difference that you were making in these people's lives like if somebody had um an abscess or an
infection and you remove that tooth or you filled the cavity all of a sudden they're out of pain
and that just changes your quality of life so much it might seem um like in the United States
dental care is a little bit more accessible I don't want to go into that in detail it is more
accessible than it was in that community we were in um so people often forget that you know there
are people going day to day in pain just because they can't get their teeth yeah so it was a very
it was a very rewarding experience um if anyone it has the opportunity to go on something like that
I heavily I really recommend it and it goes back to the patient uh doctor relationship too because
I know I was able to use Spanish a little bit there even like in that in the whole showy's house
it was pretty cool um and then when we got back to the states like when I went to work we actually
had a patient come in only spoke Spanish and my doctor actually like knows like very good Spanish
he went to social work as well he knows like really good Spanish so he was able to like converse
with the patient and like make her understand what's going on because she didn't she don't
any English right so she like kind of it makes her feel more comfortable like when your doctor
knows what you're talking about like yeah so exactly it was like a very interesting part um so
it's kind of going down the line here um can you talk a little bit about like your research
experience briefly um I know uh you started in freshman year so something yeah she probably like
started looking at so I actually it was a very unique experience I got to work in an anthropology
lab looking at um fossil pink teeth and so basically I would analyze CT scans of these um teeth from
fossil suides which are just like very prehistoric African pigs so that research went on for about
two years and we did get published in the paleobiology journal at the end of it um I was first co-author
which was really exciting and then my PI moved to a different university he was down with his PhD
so he really was like okay that's when I changed labs and I reached out to one of the doctors
in the dental school and I started working in the oral biology and pathology lab and that was
definitely more wet lab I would say the anthropology research was not wet lab it was more so
data analysis I would go through and I would kind of carve out the CT scans it was all computer based
and math based and analysis um the wet lab stuff was definitely using like PCR and using more
high padding and hand skills so that was a stark contrast and my project was with that was I'm
like try to remember it's like so long ago for that we were looking at mouse gingiva rat gingiva
sorry and basically seeing the proteins expressed in their gingival tissue so I actually dissected
the rat heads I extracted their gingiva and I ran PCR on all these tissues that was a really really
really cool um I mean it was just for my senior thesis so I I didn't turn into a publication
but I feel like if I started early enough it could have and I was someone who kind of liked
research so that's why I did it for pre-dense don't feel compelled to do research if you really don't
like it and if you can't speak meaningfully to it yeah we had Zaid on for like your first episode
and first thing he kind of said was like don't do it if you're just doing it to do it same thing
with checking the box and like yeah if you're researching something that you don't even have
any interest in and if you like don't feel like yourself you feel like you're wasting time in it
yeah bother pursuing that that much I feel like you better use your energy somewhere else to be
honest yeah right I mean I know people I know dental students that never did research and they're
at school school um it's just like certain schools Harvard is one of them they do heavily
they like research uh that's not to say if you don't do research you won't get in one of my best
friends here he only did his senior thesis and they that's what he considered his research
and that was fine like he goes down you know but certain schools do um like to see it on your resume
so if you have it great if you don't just supplement it with other things that you're passionate about
for sure um so let's talk about the dental school application uh so can you walk us through your
application process like what so you're in the program yeah you know that you're gonna go to
sony brunke anything worst case scenario you're gonna go to sony brunke yeah um so like how did
you go through like your DAT personal statement your rec letters like how do you kind of what was
your mindset going into it my mindset was to forget about the fact that I'm in the program and just
apply like I was applying like any other applicant though you know I based on like talking to other
older upperclassmen and people who are already in dental school pre-dental society was a huge
resource for me because that kind of set the timeline as to when I was going to do everything
I took the DAT in March of my junior year which means I started studying right after winter break
and I was studying during the semester like a good month and a half into the semester
I used DAT bootcamp I didn't use any other resources honestly and that was way like that was
sufficient for me uh in terms of personal statement I think I had started my personal statement in
I want to say January of my junior year and um as far as rec letters go I'm pretty sure I
asked all my professors in December or January again of my junior year so I gave them I told them
I wanted it in by the end of January and all of them were very they were fine with that because
I asked them like I gave them a good month month and a half window to write it and then I set
with them reminder emails um so I had everything done basically I had started everything basically
in the winter of the year before I was going to apply so that makes sense uh so yeah I didn't take
a gap year but I did take I did graduate a semester early so I had a semester off um you know that was
just something that I knew I needed and as far as the committee letter goes I just followed you
know stony brooks committee letter requirements and that was pretty simple in terms of personal
statement I would recommend starting early because I I literally like read and edit personal statements
as my job and it sometimes it takes a lot longer you know it's nice to have that window to have
that cushion to edit it and go through like different rounds and change the theme if need be
add paragraphs leave paragraphs so from you know as somebody who works with pretense as my job
my advice to pretense is start your personal statement early start compiling your experiences
early that was huge um especially if you have a lot of experiences and a lot to say like a lot
of extracurriculars put those on a google doc that's it you know just start writing about them
just so like you can jog your memory when the application opens you can just like copy and
paste basically yeah I think like the personal statement one of my friends told me like he would
just write down like a year before he knew he knew he was gonna start writing it you like write
all his experiences from his work yeah job and like in the moment you might not think they're
really like important things to remember but like when you look back on it you might finally get
spark of like what's a right about it person what I did too yeah that's exactly what I did like I
wrote how I wrote child like just like little prompts or my I wrote childhood experience dental
assisting the man care republic like volunteering abroad I talked about like even pre-dental society
so any literally any dental experience that you've had that can that you can write about
throat those as prompts to kind of get me going for sure um so so now that you've you know you
kind of finished most of the the right the written work where did you how did you kind of consider
there was schools applied to apply to you now at this point um so my main factors were location
actually my main factor was location though I only applied to east coast schools and another
big thing was okay I'm already in dental school technically like I already have this program
so then I applied to schools that I would genuinely see myself going to and still like I was literally
talking to my friend about this yesterday there's still some schools I was like why did I even apply
to that I wouldn't have gone so I would say location um in state versus out of state like
financials is something that you should consider uh even stuff like weather you know if if you've been
in Florida your entire life and you don't think you can handle like the fold maybe don't apply to
schools in Maine maybe don't apply to like Michigan you know what I mean um so yeah location was big
for me and then honestly like I do want to specialize so that was something I also considered
and for that I'll just say that Maine gets you like pretty far in specialty and I knew that if I
went to a school like Harvard or Columbia like specializing wouldn't be too much of an issue
right so that one is pretty big and so that's why it mostly applies like New York schools
Boston schools um New England area I applies like one in Florida I don't know why I applied to part
of school like I've been in New York my entire life I'm not going to pack up at least 18 hours away
you know oh yeah I guess you just kind of applied just to I I applied just to apply I don't know why
I wasted my money the application is expensive like I don't know why did that but yeah so um
so now that you like apply to these schools that you've chosen right um so how do the interview
process go and they send you emails and like how was your kind of was it like virtual do you go in
person close your experience like yeah so I had my application submitted by the end of June
and that wasn't really my timeline that was just like everything I had submitted personally like
in the second week of June but that the committee letter was submitted at the end of June so I would
say you know by July everything was finalized and I started getting interview invites in August
and they notified me by email um some schools do send out a secondary application like a supplemental
application so you have to pay more money and like answer more questions um so that started in August
all of mine were virtual at that time and then I got my Harvard invite and that was the first one
that was like okay you have the option in person or virtual yeah chosen person for that so you know
you do have to get to the location of the school whether you fly or drive you have to consider
like hotel costs transportation costs stuff like that um so that one was in person and I by mid
November all of my interviews were done all the schools I applied to I had to hear heard back from
and you know I'd complete all my interviews and so this cycle the um the day that they called was
December 1st and so like luckily like I I got my decisions on December 1st but it's totally
normal if you don't I know a ton of my classmates didn't get called till mid December and even February
March April you know it can go on to literally like I wouldn't start getting discouraged until
literally May you know that's kind of when you have to consider okay am I am I going to reapply
what am I going to do um so I my biggest advice is the earlier the better obviously that doesn't
mean that if you apply in September your chances are like diminished it's just the earlier you apply
the earlier schools get to look at your application and the earlier you'll get a potential interview
right so I tell like all the pre-dense that I'm on to or like they're usually most of them are
sophomores or juniors at this point in undergrad so I tell them like okay most of them have decided
at this point whether they're taking a gap year or not and so I tell them like okay start this
early start this early as early as you can to just maximize your chances um because like the
timeline does kind of make a difference for dental like more so for medical honestly but
I know people who apply in October and still down to dental school so anything's possible it's just
yeah yeah luck of the try yes yeah um so can you talk a little bit more about like how the actual
interview process was like what kind of questions were you faced with did you find any questions
that were like oh shoot I don't know the answers and stuff like I know Doug brain axolotl we had
he's d1 at Sonnybrook right now he talked for d2 he talked about like you got the why not medicine
question yeah very big question you kind of answer a little bit for any but if there are any questions
where you're like dang I don't know so um University of Florida uf was my first interview and um it was
virtual and you know I didn't really know to expect that much um so what they asked me they literally
said right off the bat they're like okay we get it you have a lot of dental like experience because
they saw that I was an assistant they're like you think is the biggest threat to dentistry and I was
like uh no but seriously though like I did have I did hear about that question beforehand so I
kind of had to prepare but the way they asked it kind of caught me off guard and so I talked about
like corporate dentistry I talked about new emerging technologies like even stuff like
Invisalign and implants that kind of um that more like general dentists can do these procedures now
so I I did have an answer prepared and it was still a very tough question if you're not prepared for
it you have to kind of know about what's going on in the dental field so that was one thing um yeah
like what's the biggest threat to dentistry another question I had this one was from Harvard
they said what was an ethical dilemma you faced and how did you handle it and I had never gotten
ethics question before in one of my interviews I know that now they're becoming more and more common
but I was just like I felt like I stuttered you know I did have a good answer for it but I had
to like really think on the spot um because also like you don't want to say anything that comes off
as unethical at the same time you don't want to violate the hip-hop you don't want to like I don't
know there's just a lot of caveats like when you do start thinking about answers to that question
you know test yourself try to ask yourself that question and what would you say for it right
if you can think of a story usually I know a lot of people a lot of the pretense I asked that
question to you when I do mock interviews they talk about like a patient experience so then you
have to kind of be careful like you don't want to yeah you can't I can get you in trouble yeah um so
that was something that was tough and I remember stuttering during my interview answering that
question um during my columbia interview this was really interesting she asked me she's like well
obviously like your stats are high and I'm sure you apply it to Harvard so would you go to columbia
over Harvard and I was like uh yeah you know like what are you what am I supposed to say
I wasn't gonna be like like I'm gonna pick Harvard actually yeah I'm going to Harvard yeah
just cuz you guys gave it it it was just like that was a very weird interview question I personally
never got why medicine just because I think it was clear in the way that I answered all my other
interview questions that dentistry was like for me like it was clear that I had experience so they
it's weird to say this but my interviews were left so about dentistry and more so about who I was
as a person what I like to do my values my interests stuff like that my like when I talk to my peers
I feel like my interview experience was kind of unique in that sense yeah but it all depends on
your interviewer and it all depends on how you click with your interviewer so if I can offer
what like this is advice I give to everyone I'm like be yourself don't be a robot don't see these
interviewers as robots either you know they are people that who have gone through dental school
or whatever they have tons of years of experience they have children and interests and hobbies and
like stuff they love to do so try to find what they like and connect with them for my BU interview
we talked about food for 30 minutes for with one of my hardwood interviewers we talked about like
she was really into like working out as well so we talked about the gym for like 10 minutes you know
stuff like that kind of reminds you that okay my interviewer is also a person and I can relax a
little bit like I can answer a question more genuinely I don't have to be robotic I don't have to like
stick to a formula if that makes sense so even like the way you dress like this was
I tell all like the girls I know this like showcase your personality and the way you dress
I literally wore a pink suit to my Harvard interview because I don't like business casual
clothes and I was like I don't want to wear a dress how do I go about this and I went to Zara
I found this like amazing pink blazer and pants and I wore that and you know like during my other
interviews I wore like a lot of florals and like colorful stuff and this might sound like
superficial and stupid but it's something that like my interviewer was picked up on and then
we talked about that yeah so any way that you can showcase your personality and have a talking
point about it like go for it and honestly easier said than done mock interviews is like the best
way to kind of gauge this but yeah like that's my biggest advice be true and like you know
Harvard has like a bunch of mock interviews like a lot of the others must have like mock
interview sessions. Zara for the new mock interviews, white coach remembers does mock interviews.
Oh nice but um yeah no Harvard asked like I actually I'm on the board I'm on the social
media and wellness chair and we host mock interviews so use those resources you know like
follow those different pre-dental societies on Instagram and keep an eye out for those events
that are literally made for pre-dents you know mock interviews and informational sessions about
the schools Q&As with dental students those are all super super like important and they give a great
amount of advice. That was going back I think that like you already spit wide dentistry applications
so many times like them just asking you that is you just gonna end up you like reciting what you've
already said. So they just want to like who you are like you're not gonna they've never seen you
in person they were talked to you in person unless you've made Smith and before but like they wanted
to know that you're like not a robot like yeah exactly like a big part of it and it's again like
it's like why you're gonna become a good doctor or dentist or whatever whatever profession you're
going to be in like it's not all about your stats not all about like school grades it is but like
what you are beyond that is much more important I feel like because of the new that's like what
makes you happy right like you running your food business you're doing the consulting things
your firm I feel like it's just brings it all together and just kind of makes like you're like
a more well-rounded person. That's literally what we talked about most of the time like when they
said what would you like to do when I mentioned the food blog they're like oh tell me about that and
we spent so much time because like what? Yeah they know exactly yeah yeah so like it they care more
about that stuff like what makes you you versus like oh I shadowed a doctor and this is what I saw
like I saw a crowd prep like they don't care about that they do that day in and day out like they know
what a crowd prep is they know what their feeling is like they don't want to hear about it they want
to hear about what makes you unique and that's another question I got a lot I got that during
my storybook interview when I was get like when I was interviewing for the BS CDS program they were
like what makes you unique like everybody else wants to get into that little school everybody
else has your stats like what sets you apart and I think that's a really introspective question
you know you really have to kind of sit with yourself and be like wait yeah what does make
me unique and there's a lot more things than you think yeah like so I would say for pretend
that are preparing for interviews like think about that yeah for sure um so now you know you you
have interviewed already um you got your acceptance to Harvard I'm I'm assuming you got accepted to
Harvard yeah um so like how's it been so far like your D1 year I know that Harvard has a
degree to like med school down school program what what did you expect going in were you like
nervous going in were you excited I'm assuming you're excited but like did you have any like
second thoughts nervous feeling and stuff like that how'd she get in um I think the biggest thing
was like every single dental student I talked to kind of like fear-mongered like this idea of
oh you have no free time you're always working the classwork is so hard the material is so hard
sim lab is so like everything that I heard about dental school was like oh it's so hard yeah um so
I think I was nervous but I also knew that the first year at Harvard you're a medical student at the
medical school um you don't actually go over to the dental school until the second year so you do
like the same practice of medicine classes with the other medical students where you're in a hospital
doing like patient histories and like doing vitals like I was in the hospital I was at mass general
last week or this week on Wednesday and with it's like practice taking blood pressure on each other
and like taking each other's heart rate because next week we're literally doing that on patients
and so I think it's really interesting and that was a huge part of why I came to Harvard I love
the integration between the oral and oral and systemic health and emphasis they have on that
so I think for that reason my nerves were a little bit like lessened just because I was like okay
I'm just taking medical school classes um the first year uh I honestly really like it so far I do
like how D1s here have the opportunity to shadow and assist and the upperclassmen are very adamant
about keeping us involved and like you know I I'm very close with a handful of upperclassmen and
they're always texting me like hey do you want to shadow today or hey do you want can you like
pop in and assist on like this perio case or whatever maybe so I think being such a small
dental school you know we're 35 students each class those relationships form really fast and you get
really close with people really fast so don't let that like discourage you from applying to Harvard
just because like oh the medical school curriculum like you're not a dental student the first year
you still are a very much a dental student you still have like that strong strong community
tight-knit community behind you so that's honestly my favorite part about being here one of them
besides like the pass fail um uh yeah like the tight the small class size it's just such a game changer
and we talked to paula a couple weeks ago again but he talked about like are we asked I asked him
like how the social life is at Buffalo like does he have a lot of free time he's like
heck yeah we have a lot of free time dude like you know if you're able to structure your day is kind
of um it's not like undergrad where you have certain courses certain times like he talked about
like how certain courses are kind of they start and end like different dates and like random dates
and like a lot of free time in day like how are you whichever way is too suspended is up to you
and it's like that's like really cool about you know you have like you like freedom like you're
more freedom than you did undergrad uh stuff like that so and you talked about the past
fails is that I kind of sway your decision in going there I know somebody is in past fail but
big time past fail takes so much of the competition away takes so much of the stress away
up until Thanksgiving our exams are even open notes so it's like
if we don't want you to do poorly they want to make that transition really easy for you
so my classes are from 8 to 12 every day except for Wednesdays that's when I'm in the hospital
and so like you said you know you do have a lot of free time once you're done with your class
it's up to you what you want to do right we have we have flipped classroom which means you have to
take you have to do the lectures before you go to class the next day and then in class it's CBCL
which is it's called like clinic based class like learning I don't I don't really know what it stands
for but it's basically in class or case-based learning so in in class you discuss cases that
pertain to the lectures that you did the night before so I really I do like how you have so
much free time once you're done with your prep work for the next day and you're done for the day
and whether you want to do that right after class and be done by like four or five o'clock or if
you save it for the nighttime and you want to do like stuff in the middle of the day you know you
have that liberty you have that independence right but yeah no pastels huge honestly like nobody
competes with any anyone because at the end of the day p equals dmd and that's kind of our lot
like it's really crazy to have a yes yeah yeah uh really nice right um so you you'd talk to you'd
kind of briefly touched on like you want to go into endo right yeah no oral surgery you kind of like
be right now um so what kind of maze you go that way um I so obviously I'm not saying I'm a special
to you but I do like the fact that oral surgery again you have more of that medical background
and I don't know just based off my shadowing and my assisting experience I liked how endo is really
straightforward you see a you you do your root canals right apicalactamies maybe um and honestly
the work life balance with endo seemed a lot better than general just in like the office settings
that I've seen and so I was like okay it's very fine detail like a very hand skill oriented
you know this the procedure is kind of straightforward you're doing a root canal
uh there is a little bit of variation but not so much and your work life balance is great so
I don't know if that sounds superficial but that's kind of what drew me to endo you know
what what a dentist what a general dentist told me was what I make seeing like five patients
is what an endo makes seeing one patient so again like I don't want to say the only reason I'm going
into endo is for the money but like that is a huge factor when you're considering work life
balance and what you want your schedule to look like at the end of the day you're still a dentist
no matter what so it's just like okay how what kind of dentist do you want to be right do you want
to do all sorts of procedures cosmetic procedures do you want to do more like fine tuned on to one
procedure and I like the idea of getting really good at one thing versus just doing a little bit
of everything in terms of oral surgery I really I just really like the idea of I don't know like
I like restoring somebody I just I don't know like when I've assisted oral surgery it's been
mostly like wisdom teeth extractions and symbols up like that but there was just something and
this is gonna sound like super like I don't know like touchy feely here but I worked with female
oral surgeons and I feel like oral surgery is a specialty that lacks a lot of female representation
so that's just like inspiring to me as it is you know being in like the minority in that kind of
specialty that's really cool to me and it's like almost like a challenge because a lot of the people
I know here that do want to do OS are men and again like I said I do like the medical aspect of it
and that's why again I chose Harvard so since I haven't started any type of pre-clinic
over at the dental school I don't have a clear concrete answer but those are just some ideas
so like have you talked to upper class then about like if not touching hand pieces or doing like
clinical base work until your second year yeah what's you behind other schools or is it just kind of
you know see I was worried about that but they were very good at easing my worries like right away
they're like you catch up fast you know they're not setting you up for failure whatsoever you
really are set up for success and you know even though you basically get whatever specialty you
want type thing here and there are people that choose to go into general which is totally fair
and they feel like at least the upper class when I've talked to they said they feel prepared to
just go into the workforce but they don't feel like they're behind any other dental schools or
their peers at other dental schools I think Harvard does a good job at just helping you out yeah I
think when I visited it when we talked to the teeth I'm not gonna say anything but like we talked to
her and she was kind of like you kind of get into wherever you want to go because Harvard right
it's like a really good school like you won't be you know that's kind of how she took it when
she applied to the school so I think that's like a really interesting part of it also and no past
failings obviously great um as you tell even Zay goes to Columbia so he's talking about Columbia's
past fail as well and he was just like there's no stress like everyone wants to help our funny house
it's just like it's just like imagine undergrad was like that yeah it would have been a big difference
like everybody shares notes we all study together it's very collaborative it's not cutthroat whatsoever
I feel like you might have even learned more you do well if you're like everyone's talking to each
other and you're just kind of absorbing everyone's like how everyone else gets information like
perceives the information yeah like might grow like different perspectives like I don't think about
this sort of thing so yeah exactly no it's a huge change from undergrad where you know like and if
you are in that competitive mindset or like that oh like what'd you get on the test mindset you are
shut down right away nobody is like nobody wants to put up with that nobody wants to hear that
very it's a very non-toxic environment here we're all trying to help each other and like get to where
we want to be right so kind of like wrapping up here do you want to like plug your your businesses
that you got going on yeah so I'll tag them later anyway but the like I keep talking about the
food one that's Pizano's place I work as a restaurant promoter so restaurants reach out to me
sometimes I reach out to them and I go and basically get free food and review it so that like it's so
much fun it's a lot of work it might not sound like a lot but it is so much more work than you think
so that's something that I do well like that takes up a lot of my time and then the consulting
business it's actually pre-medical and pre-dental it's called white coat dreamers and basically we
do personal statement editing we do full application editing like you know all your activities and your
experiences we do consulting you know where we meet on zoom and basically just like go through and
help you along your pre-dental journey mock interviews is a big one that we're doing right
now we've been doing a bunch of those where basically exactly what it sounds like a mock interview
right and then something unique that we do is we meet with parents because I mentioned it very
early on you know in our conversation that my parents had no idea about this entire process
so getting parents in the know early makes a big difference in the students journey to medical school
our deathful school so that like we meet with a lot of high school parents that like kind of want
to go think about BSMD or BSDDS or you know they consider a lot of other factors for undergrad
because of that so yeah if you're looking for some extra pre-dental advice like this is obviously
your podcast is an amazing resource it's everything free resource and utilize for pre-dent out there
utilize any free resources that you can and if you want that extra push you know white coat dreamers
we're there for you especially with the personal statements that's like our number one thing right
so I might even you I might even use your guys as a service so when I get to that point because
like it's like that's like actual like one-on-one and like you guys have proven yourself to already
like know what you're talking about so yeah oh yeah I forgot to say I run it with my boyfriend and he
goes to med school at NYU so he's a huge you know really everything we do is 50-50 because dental
and medical school admissions are very similar so having that expertise on both ends is really
insightful yeah for sure um so like actually wrapping up here um yeah let's like the last
piece of advice you can give any pre-dentalists going through this whole process honestly believe
in yourself um and even if it sounds delusional like just tell yourself you're getting in that sound
it sounds so bizarre but I would just tell myself like okay a year from now I'm gonna be at Harvard
or I'm gonna be at dental school even like the week before my interview I'd be like my interview
went so well so just believe in yourself and just know that you have the experiences you have the
knowledge you have you know the confidence so just be confident believe in yourself and you'll
get to where you want to be you know everyone that I know like everyone that I've met along this journey
has gotten into dental school so nobody gets left behind one way or another you're getting it so just
believe in yourself and take that as you will all right so that concludes our episode of
Dental Podcast thank you also for joining me and sharing your experience with the interview process
you're inside was definitely valuable to me and I hope that I'll be the same for pre-dental
listeners everyone please be free to reach out to us at our socials and I'll support them in the
the show description when we do upload this episode if you have further questions and we
thank everyone for listening and if you enjoyed this episode please be sure to follow us on
Instagram and Spotify and we'll see you next time for another dose of dental college