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Everyone, welcome back to another episode of the DOSEDENTAL podcast.
The focus of this podcast is to share undergraduate and dental school experiences from dental
students and dental professionals through valuable discussions.
We're sharing the journeys and stories of current dental students and dental professionals,
or go help you find answers or guidance for your own pre-dental journeys.
We are very excited to have Sonia Brick dental student Lesia Nantani with us today.
Lesia graduated from Emmer University with a bachelor's degree in biology and global
health.
She is now a D1 student at Sonia Brick School of Dental Medicine.
Hey Lesia, welcome to the podcast.
How was your first year of dental school been going?
It's kind of crazy that you're almost done with it.
I know, it actually is crazy that I think I'm almost done.
I feel like this year went by so quickly, but it went really well.
We were in the med school for the first half of it until spring break, and then we just
started in the dental school three weeks ago.
It's definitely a fresh perspective.
It's nice to be in the dental school full time.
You already knew going in that you're going to be with the medical students for the first
half of the year.
Yeah.
Why don't you just live by yourself, where you're from, where you grew up, what you like
to do for fun?
Yeah, so I'm actually originally from Phoenix, Arizona, so kind of far away from here.
I guess my favorite things to do are, I was part of a dance team when I was small and
in college.
I like to paint.
I have my paintings up all around my room.
Also, I just like to get outside, work out, stay active.
So whether that means getting outside, hiking in Arizona was a big thing growing up, or
now just going on walks outside to get a little bit of sun.
I definitely missed that from Arizona.
But yeah, everything's just been... I've had time to be able to do those things.
Well, I'm in dental school.
Well, that's against the time management aspect, dental school, how you kind of manage your
time and have time to do other things besides just studying.
But I want to hit you with that question, right?
So why dentistry?
Yeah.
So my mom is actually a general dentist.
So I feel like I was in this space growing up.
I saw what it entails, and I just realized that it's a perfect fit for me.
I always enjoyed medicine, but I think dentistry is specifically a good fit for people who
enjoy working with their hands, who are more artistic, who like that patient interaction
every single day.
I know that one great thing that she loved about the job that I also resonated with is
seeing generations of patients coming into her office.
And so you really, really get that close patient interaction, and you get to know these people
like their family.
Now, were you like around her office a lot?
Did you kind of assist her a little bit as you grew up, or were you just kind of, you
know, always in it?
Yeah.
So I was definitely a hard kid to actually come in and work.
I never wanted to do that.
But I would go and shadow her.
I also worked front office at her office for a while, which I think is super important.
I think that we don't really get the chance to learn the business aspect or the front
office aspect in dental school.
And it's really important to get an idea of what that's going to be like since most
of us end up working in private practice after we graduate.
And so that was a super helpful experience, just understanding insurances, understanding
marketing, understanding, you know, like how to keep patients coming and keep them comfortable
in the office.
I think so I work in office too.
And there's always like a little dynamic between the front desk people and like our
assistants, because we have no idea.
We just, we're just there to like do the procedures, right?
To help doctors.
But we don't know, you know, patient might take like an hour for consult, but then they
have no insurance and they can't do the procedure at the end of the day.
So I think there's a lot to be said about the knowledge of assistance to understand
what the insurance aspect of it is, just so that maybe in the future we can like maybe
make the most out of our time at doctor's time, because if patients are going to come
in and do a consult for like an hour and then they eventually just get nothing done, then
I feel like it's kind of not a waste of everyone's time, but there could be like a better use
for most time.
So that's definitely an interesting part that you said.
And I know even at dental school, right, you have to do most of the administrative work
yourself.
Yeah.
Right.
I think that we'll get a better idea of how that goes once we start in clinic.
But yeah, like you said, it's so important to have a good knowledge of the insurance
aspect of it.
Like, I think that that's a big thing that's going to be affecting future dentists too.
You know, a lot of people, I was just actually at Lobby Day for ASDA.
And one of the things that we were advocating for was insurance companies determining what
dentists can pay or can charge for certain things that they do in the office, even if
the insurance doesn't cover the whatever procedure is being done.
And so there's like a lot of, there's a lot of little things that insurance companies
have a control over in the office that we might not be aware of until we're actually
like a dentist practicing.
And so having an idea of those things and going into it is definitely very valuable.
And I kind of write up on that a little bit.
Like, I don't understand how they can have fixed rates for things that they don't cover.
Exactly.
That's me, but they're trying to guess you again, I guess.
So let's rewind a little bit.
So how was your undergrad experience?
I know you went to Emory, but you're from Arizona.
So how did that kind of work out?
Yeah, so I knew I wanted to go out of state.
I think Emory is known for being a very good school to prepare you for med school healthcare
professions in general like that.
And so we had a very big pre-medical society, but the pre-dental society was really small
as I'm sure it is at most schools.
And so that was one thing that I really enjoyed getting involved in.
I ended up, you know, my second and third year, I was the vice president of community
service, I mean, of mentorship at Emory.
And then my senior year, I was president of the pre-dental society.
And by doing that, I realized how much mentorship is required and how much you can learn, how
valuable it is to have those mentors, whether they're peers or upperclassmen or advisors
at the school.
And I think Emory was a really great place to be for pre-dental specifically because
we actually had a specific pre-dental mentor or advisor.
And so I ended up getting very close with him.
He made sure to, you know, there are differences between applying to medical school and dental
school, and he made sure to make those very clear to us.
And so I think that I had an overall really great experience there.
And the, I think the idea of increasing membership at the pre-dental society at Emory was something
that I was able to achieve by the end of the time that I was there.
So did you have your side set of dentistry like when you entered freshman year?
Like, did you already know that you wanted to go, like, I guess not maybe dentistry to
the science, medical route, but that's cool, dental school.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I knew that I wanted to do dentistry when I came in, but I think once I was there,
I kind of switched up a little bit.
I was interested in public health, as I said, I was a minor in global health, and I really,
really enjoyed everything that I was learning in those classes.
But I think that I really solidified wanting to do dentistry after I started volunteering
at this free clinic in Atlanta.
It's called Clarkston Community Health Center, and they provide free care for low-income immigrants
and refugees in the Atlanta area.
And I worked actually as a dental assistant, and I realized that there's a lot of overlap
between oral health, dentistry, and public health that isn't covered usually.
I mean, we focus a lot about systemic health when we talk about public health and advocacy
and education.
And there aren't as many people talking about oral health in that space.
And so I think that I realized that that was something that I could do is be a clinician,
but also be able to talk about the public health aspect of it and really engage my community
in educating themselves on oral health and how it relates to their systemic health.
So that's kind of how I solidified my decision.
And I actually went to a conference, like there's a Harvard pre-dental conference, and
my sister lives up in Boston, so I'm able to go and stay with her and go to these things.
But one of the professors talked about global oral health, and I went on a mission trip
this past summer to Guatemala, and it was from VAW.
So we went to this place called San Pedro in Guatemala, and we did, we had a little clinic
and we treated patients that really don't get regular dental treatment at all, right?
So they come in with abscesses, a lot of infections that we can't treat because we don't have x-rays
first of all, and then we can put them to sleep or anything.
So it's kind of more surface level dentistry.
But after I went to that conference, after I came back, the professor kind of talked
about how she had a practice, she had a private practice, and then she kind of sold it because
she thought, well, she went on a trip same as I did, and then it opened her eyes to being
in quality and global health there is.
And so she essentially sold her private practice, which was doing very well.
She sold it and how she's doing like kind of global oral health lecturing and kind of
educating the public on these things.
And I feel like a lot of dental students get sucked up into assisting at an office here
that do a bunch of implants a week to patients who can afford it, right?
And that's what we think is dentistry.
But honestly, like people will say they want to help each other, and that's what every
student dental student says.
The best way to help somebody is to help people to actually eat more than people here, which
is what you're kind of saying.
And so these people like in Africa, in Mexico that don't have that treatment to health care,
I think that's one aspect of dentistry where everyone should at least try to get involved
and try to get a little bit exposure to.
So you know, pre-dental students, maybe they might have some like a VAW as a club that does
these mission trips.
I know mission trips can be kind of suspicious sometimes, but it was fine.
We got still here.
And that's a very important part of getting it.
And so I've kind of got both of the roles, like people that get full mouth restoration
treatments, people that can't even get an extraction.
So like it's a dilemma.
You probably can relate to this, from everything you've seen.
Like what are your thoughts on this dilemma between people who can afford this health
care in America and people that can't even get access to it in other countries?
How can we kind of educate ourselves on that?
I don't know.
But I would even like to say that there's so many communities of people within the US
that can't get access to the care, right?
Like all of these people that we were treating were in Atlanta.
They were, I mean, granted they were immigrants or they were refugees from other countries
from all over.
They spoke like, I think we had over 30 different languages of patients that came in.
And so I definitely think it's important, obviously, for American trained dentists to
go to other countries and assist or provide care, provide screenings, provide education
in other countries.
But I always am of the idea that we should start at home, right?
Like we have so many communities in rural communities here that aren't able to get access
to general care, to general dental care.
And the patients who were coming in had no idea about the things that they had to do
to even treat their own regular day to day oral health.
There were patients who would come in and they wouldn't brush their teeth with actual
toothbrushes.
We have this thing in India called Neem Powder.
And they would just put that on their finger and just use that to clean their teeth.
And obviously you're not getting the same kind of cleaning with just using a powder
as you would with brushing your teeth.
And so because of that, we would have people coming in with severe periodontitis.
And all we could do at that point is extract their teeth because the only thing, as you've
said, that we have capacity to do at clinics like that is fillings and extractions.
We don't have the capacity to do crowns or root canals or implants or any of those things.
And so you'd have patients come in with all of their molars missing, which at that point
is going to completely change the way that they function, right?
They have a lack of ability to chew food.
Of course, it's going to affect the way that they look, which affects the way that they
would be able to get a job in the future.
And so all of those things are really important, I think, to address.
And so I think the number one thing, there is a organization called RAM, like Remote
Area Medical.
I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's very similar to the free clinic that I worked
at, but they travel and they do these kinds of procedures in different places like Tennessee,
New York, there's actually one of them.
And so I think that it's super important for students to go to these events and for dentists
to volunteer their time at these events and provide their care.
And obviously, I think the number one thing that we could do is promote more dentists in
rural areas, right?
We should have more dentists.
And it's difficult, of course, with the way that we have so many student loans by the
time we graduate.
And I can talk about that a little bit more into why I chose the dental school I'm at.
But with how much we owe by the time we graduate, so many dentists just want to go in and make
it a business hungry kind of private practice where they can pay off their loans, just literally
to live.
But at the same time, it's really important to at least spend some time in rural communities
and be able to give back in that way and provide to people who can't reach the urban areas.
I know at least in my office, I know a lot of our doctors go to these CE courses, but
most of the courses are actually, I think they have them in areas where people need
the treatment.
So it's kind of like a double dipping where doctors who are already practicing, they can
maybe go for their skills, but they can also help the community.
So I guess like that way would be one way to kind of make this a little better.
We're going really into the topic, but it's pretty interesting to me.
I think it's pretty important.
So what else do you undergrad, did you kind of have to do to kind of make yourself stand
out?
I know you're on like a dance team.
You did a lot of painting, a lot of cooking.
So can you talk about a little bit about how I guess those things can be grounded and
how you can use that to stand out to dental schools?
Yeah.
So I think my first two years of college were very difficult for me, at least in terms of
adjusting, and I'm sure a lot of students can relate to that.
Going into like pre-medical classes at a school like Emory was actually very difficult, especially
considering that they made all of the intro courses, weed out classes for pre-med and
pre-dental students, and we had to take all the same courses, right?
So I think I had a lot of difficulty with my mental health the first two years, and
it was really during COVID that I was able to take the time and sit back and notice that
it was my own decisions, the way that I spent my time that was making it worse.
And so really, I would say post COVID is when I started making time for all of these things
that I know keep me grounded and keep my mental health a lot better, make me more sane.
The number one thing that I would say is do the things that you enjoy, whether it has
to do with your application or not.
I mean, painting obviously helps with your dexterity and things like that, right?
And so I'm lucky that I was able to do something that aided both in my career and also just
in my mental health.
But at the same time, I would take time to do things that had nothing to do with dentistry.
My dance team that I was on, we practiced over 20 hours a week, and I knew that that
would take away from time studying, but I also knew that that gave me the ability to
exercise, get in dolphins, spend time with other girls that I really enjoyed hanging
out with, and connect to my culture because it was a Bollywood dance team.
And so I knew that that was a good time spent, even though it took away from studying.
And it just aids in learning how to spend your time, how to not procrastinate, how to
make sure that you are really diligent with what time you do have to study.
I think it's very important.
And a lot of people get stuck in the books and they'll do anything besides studying.
I think that's soft.
Because even like, I love playing basketball, it's kind of like what I do all the time.
I'm not like LeBron James or anything, but I can get some kids going.
But like when I'm in the gym, I don't think about my next chem test or bow test or any
of this other stuff I have to do, right?
It's just kind of like a getaway.
That's super important.
Not even just like towards studying, but just towards your mental health, I guess, like
you said.
And that's super, super interesting.
So like how did you use these experiences and kind of cultivate everything towards your
application?
Like towards your, you know, as you guess, like junior or senior year.
And did you even say gap year after?
I don't remember if you said that.
So I took a gap semester.
I graduated in December of 2021.
And so I had that gap from January until starting in August.
But I did apply as though I was going to go straight through.
But it was really nice to have that time off.
I think a lot of my friends, I see the gap semester and they kind of just go travel
or they just kind of relax and chill.
I think they wanted to do before.
So how did you, how was the application process like?
So you applied probably like a June, May, June rate?
Yeah.
So I applied the June right before my senior year started.
I had pretty much all of my prerequisites done except for like one course.
I think microbiology or something like that.
And so I was able to spend that last semester just preparing for interviews.
So the application process, I think was really aided by Emory because we had a composite
letter.
So we had like a school composite letter, right?
Where they will basically write a summary of all of your experiences, your grades, your
DAT score, all of the activities you did, the research you did, your letters of recommendation
and they'll compile all of that and send it to all the schools that you're applying
to.
And so they actually had a lot of these due dates due, you know, December before you're
going to apply, February before you're going to apply.
And I think that that really helped in making sure that my application was completely ready
by the first day it opened.
I would say like the number one advice that I would give in terms of the application cycle
is to submit on the first day because as everybody knows, it's a rolling application, right?
So say a thousand kids apply that first hour, those are the first thousand applications
that they're going to be looking through and they might find 30 or 40 kids they like in
that thousand and not even get to yours if you applied in July or August or September.
And so I think that the number one thing that was super helpful was having everything prepared,
my personal statement ready to submit, all of my activities logged on like a Google Doc
with a 650 like character count or whatever it was written out for each thing.
So I could just as soon as it opened, I could plug everything in and just submit it all.
And so I mean, let's let's go back, right?
You should talk about the DAT a little bit.
I know it's it's kind of like one of the biggest things to talk about.
So how did you kind of go about like that?
And like, what did you take that?
Did you take it like a couple of months before your application or did you take it in like
gaps in a certain like?
So I was actually very early with my DAT.
I took it right after my sophomore year of college because that was COVID summer for
me.
So I really had nothing else I could do other than study at home.
And I would say that that is the biggest deal is you want to have nothing else to do during
the time that you're studying for your DAT.
I think it's the number one thing that contributed to my success is I sat down for three months
and it was just my entire focus for those three months.
I didn't go into it thinking, this is the first time I'm going to take it.
I went into it thinking, this is the time I'm taking it and I don't want to retake it
because I think that a lot of students get hung up on, oh, I can retake it later or I
can take it a second or third time.
And you know, I'm just going to do it this time to see how it goes.
And then, you know, it gets really prolonged and a lot of the time, like if you just plug
in all the information, you just really get it all into your brain in those eight weeks
or 10 weeks, then you will have that short term memory to be able to do really well in
the exam.
So I used DAT boot camp and it was basically, I think, a 12-week program and I lengthened
it, I think, to 15 weeks, so it gave me a little bit of wiggle room.
And I think the number one thing that I would suggest in addition to boot camp, it was a
great resource, by the way.
It was wonderful, but I think Anki is like the best thing and it's funny because my friends
make fun of me so much now in dental school for being obsessed with Anki that I swear
to God it's what medical students like live by for their board exams and trust it is such
a good way to get this memory of all these random things you have to know for the DAT.
So I would say like every day you spend some time doing content and then at night you could
take a break and then at night just do the Anki to review all of the content that you
covered for the day.
And so I took my March, March, so like a month ago I guess you'd say.
And I think the best thing, so I said it over a winter break on my junior year, I really
wish I did it after like the summer after my sophomore year though because I had nothing
going on really.
I mean I went on the semester trip and then I went, I did research second half of the
summer but I wish I took it then just because when school starts like coming up on you like
it's kind of, you might have time but like the mental time you have I guess you'd say
is not enough.
But in terms of Anki, like Anki was honestly, it was great because for bio especially bio
I would be able to bang out like maybe a chapter within like an hour because of all the cards
they have and sometimes they have bio bites in boot camp so I would, the order I would
do it in I think I would do, I would read those yielded notes they have, the high yield
notes, those are pretty good.
I'd read those maybe six times with my whole, through my whole studying and then so I would
read those notes and then I would do the bio bites because the bio bites are essentially
like a representation of the notes, just questions.
And then from there I would go to Anki and by the time I get to Anki I'm already like
seen the material like maybe twice.
So then I would just do the cards and then you know the next day they come back again
so then you just keep doing it again and again and again and there was good active recall
there.
So when the test actually came it was just kind of like I finished by the bio section
maybe like, I don't know how much time do you get like 40 minutes or like 30 minutes?
I don't remember.
It took you like a month ago I don't remember but I think 30, 40 minutes but I finished
it in about like 20 minutes just because of how much Anki kind of sent me to the information
to my brain.
And then I would do like a little bit of PhD every day.
No, PhD is one of those topics for like kids.
Oh, damn, this is what am I looking at right now?
But I like first hand experience guarantee you that the actual exam, if you do boot camp
the actual game is a lot simpler than what's on boot camp.
Exactly.
And I would definitely say that so I think the best thing to do is take every single
practice test that they offer on boot camp and I'm sure that you would say the same.
When you take those practice tests, the number one thing isn't just to you know see what
your score was and each of the subjects and move on but to actually go through and actively
figure out you know what topics and content material you were struggling with because
usually they will give you a breakdown and so you can see oh you know I need to work
more on this system or physiology or biochemistry whatever it is within each subject and that
really helps you tailor your studying for the last month before you're going to take
it and everybody says this but the day of your score for each category goes up like
two points and that's what happened to me too.
And some of them they went up by like four points so it was just it was great to just
you know you feel like really nervous going into it because the boot camp exams are so
difficult but trust that it really really prepares you the day of and you'll be very
pleasantly surprised after the exams over.
For sure and I would say like I mean I don't know if you do like destroyer do you get those
books or not?
I don't think so no.
Well I had I was able to get them and I wouldn't say I mean the bio and genicam that's all
great but I guess math would be the best thing to get just because math is so repetitive.
So the destroyer math books they have are essentially the same thing as the actual exam
same questions and there's like maybe 14 exams in that book and doing them repeatedly like
really gets into your brain because it's all like a pattern right?
The test itself is not like super super super hard it's more like how to take it in like
recognizing patterns you know what I mean?
So if you know what equations use in genicam you're good if you know what equation that
what reaction that is in our goal you're good.
So like you can just if you can make like mental pictures and visualizations that you
should be you should be good to go in that section.
I don't know what other sections did you kind of or I guess how did you approach it to
the PhD section?
I think the PhD section was my weakest section.
It didn't end up going very badly but I was definitely most nervous for that one.
The main way that I did it was how they structured it in boot camp.
So I started with the easiest categories.
I think it was like I honestly don't remember all the categories under PhD but there's like
the three that are easier and three that are harder of like kinds of questions I'll ask
and they're not in the same order like it's not like the three easiest go first and the
three hardest go last but you literally just start with the easiest ones.
You skip all the questions that are harder.
You do the easiest ones and then you have more time to spend on the ones that are harder
and literally that one's just practice.
There was like a PAT app that I would use and when I was like driving or not driving
when I was like on the train to go to like dance practice or like when I was just at
home and like I wanted to take a break from like biology hard content like I would just
do those and they were really fun kind of it was like a game almost and you just like
practice over and over and literally that's the only way you can get it.
So I think those are the three easy ones are like cube counting this whole bunch and then
there's pattern folding.
Right.
Yeah.
Ingrid Raking is like some BS like you just got to you either get it or you don't I don't
know.
Yeah.
And then the TFE was also kind of interesting just because I guess the more you do it the
easier it is but on book out on the actual exam I swear like the shapes were just like
they were not that complicated.
It wasn't like there was a thousand different angles where we had to analyze.
It's kind of it's very simple.
Same with heel whole punching.
I'm like a whole like episode on this is really interesting on how I approach the every section
but open she's always look there's if you finally get method you really like and just
go with it and you're going to get all the right man.
I'll probably make a video on like how which ones I use the best.
But yeah I mean so what's the DT out of the way.
I mean you did your personal statements how did that kind of got you kind of approach
that how did that kind of take you to get to the final product.
Yeah so honestly I think that I thought it was going to take a lot longer than it did.
I just sat down and started writing like it was a journal entry one random day over summer
I think or winter break because I think my personal statement was due in February for
the school.
And so I sat down over winter break and I was like let me just start writing something
down like a journal entry at least if I have something down I can read through it and find
ideas I like within it.
And I ended up just writing straight for like two hours or something and I had two pages
just flushed out and obviously that is a very very like early draft of it.
But I had the ideas of what I wanted it to be about.
And you know I had a lot of people read my personal statement.
My sister was in med school at the time she's a resident now so I had her read it.
I had my advisor read it my pre-dental advisor and a couple of other people that I thought
could give me constructive criticism.
And I think that it did change obviously at some points I was like I just need to scrap
the whole thing and start over.
But at the end of the day like I knew that what I started with was very honest and very
like just clear about myself and it was very personal so I decided you know I'm just going
to go with that.
Some people disliked the way that I wrote and other people were like you're being very
raw in this and I think that that will speak to the kind of person you are.
And so whenever I talk to people about writing their personal statement I always say you
should never write about something that you think they want to hear.
You should always just be very raw and just listen to what you want to say and what your
journey was.
It might not you know strike a right chord with every single person who reads it but
you don't want to go to those schools if they don't like the kind of person that you are
right.
So I always say be as honest and vulnerable as possible and somebody will see that you
were being very honest and really commend you for that.
And how did you kind of make your like I mean like how did you catch the reader's eye?
What were some techniques you kind of used in your personal statement that kind of made
it stand out do you feel like?
I mean I'm not sure because I was never on an admissions board but I would say that like
the biggest thing that I enjoy about my writing is making it more artistic you know than just
kind of stating things that happened in my life.
You know I drew a connection between my connection with spirituality and meditation into shadowing
and how watching these dentists was very meditative to me and watching the work and seeing how
they were so you know precise with the way that they were doing things and the way that
they were just completely zoned in on what they were doing.
And then I connected you know my interest in Ayurveda and cooking with you know mental
health and overall systemic health and how these are not all separate things.
Our gut health, our mental health, our oral health they all connect to systemic health
right.
And so I think just like bringing in different experiences but in the end tying it all into
why dentistry and why oral health specifically is the thing that I think was really great.
Did that kind of stuff come up during interviews?
Oh yeah.
My personal statement came up in like all of my interviews.
One of the things that I was worried about that I talked about in my personal statement
was my mental health the first two years of college and I used the word quit and like
somebody who read my statement was like you shouldn't say that they don't want to quitter
they don't want somebody who doesn't follow through with what they're doing.
And I was like I'm going to keep that in there because that's part of my journey and I you
know I quit a lot of things in the first two years and just completely confined myself
to my room and became you know just very lazy and I wasn't doing the things that I was
supposed to be doing but then in the end that ultimately like made me change as a person.
And everybody brought it up in my interviews and they were like you really had a journey
during college and you really overcame something and that really goes to show it's a testament
to you know dental school is very difficult and you are prepared for the difficult times
that are going to occur.
Like they don't want somebody who's just perfect and knows exactly what they want to do 24
seven you know so just be very vulnerable I guess.
And I mean that's the honesty right there is what might even help you get through your
interview because if it's like that if you're that honest about something and they read
it and you can talk about it right you can literally talk about it.
I don't know how long interviews usually go for in 20-30 minutes is that how it works
so hour?
It really depends on the school so yeah some of mine went the full hour and they were
very like would just ask me the questions that they had written down and other ones
were like we were just having a conversation and sometimes it would just be 20 minutes
sometimes it'd be over an hour.
So I mean yeah if you write something about that like you can just talk about that like
it doesn't have to be about dental school at that point or like your other stuff that
you're doing right so I mean that's something to think about when people are writing personal
statements.
Definitely the hardest thing people like the pre-dawn students have seen like try to get
around is that voice that passive voice like I want to I don't know like I want to help
people I guess that's what you would say like that's what they need to say.
Did you write did you ever have that kind of voice in your personal statement like
should you ever have like I want to help people and then do you kind of like think that you
want to do something like adjust as it doesn't sound like you're just being like everybody
else.
Yeah I think that's where your specific experiences come in because everybody who's going into
healthcare wants to help people right there's a reason they're going into service oriented
job and so I think the way that you approach that is talking about why you want to help
people or what experience brought you to that realization and so for me it was working at
Clarkson Community Health Center and working at a free clinic and just seeing like the
range of patients that you can encounter versus working at my mom's office you know in a nice
suburb and the kinds of patients that she would see and so I think just being very specific
with your why is what makes you stand out.
Yeah that makes sense.
So as you go through this process you're from Arizona and you went to Emory so where are
you thinking about going now like now you're planning on schools like where are you thinking
where is your head at do you want to go back home or do you want to you know apply to schools
in Northeast which is where you are now or like how did that kind of go about.
Yeah so I applied everywhere and that is because Arizona doesn't have an in-state school it's
one of the few that doesn't and so a lot of the dentists that I spoke to regarding like
where should I apply how do I cure my list the number one thing every single one of them
said was look at cost because it doesn't matter where you go you're going to graduate with
the DDS or a DMD like you're going to get the degree and you're going to get a good
education regardless of where you go but you could graduate with maybe 300k in loans you
could graduate with 600k in loans or even more and so as practicing dentists and talking
to those people specifically I think is the most important advice that you get because
you can talk to students who are in dental school and all of them are going to say they
love their school or you know they're going to look at maybe how nice the school is or
the name of the school name brand is a huge thing right but I think talking to actual
practicing dentists and hearing what they think is important and what we're going to
think is important in 20 or 30 years is really helpful and so when I applied I applied all
over the country mainly East Coast and West Coast and I ended up getting interviews on
both coasts so I had options when I got in and so once I got into those places I decided
that cost was going to be my number one decision and Stony Brook was the cheapest option for
me but there are a lot of other great things that I found about the school that made me
solidify my decision so we're the smallest class size in the country we only have 47
45 students this year and it's usually 45 or 46 and so that's super helpful because
you get really close to your class it's very collaborative there's no ranking and so there's
no competition I did not want a competitive environment and I knew I wanted to do oral
surgery coming in and being in the med school I think is super helpful for that if you do
want to do oral surgery at Stony Brook we are actually graded so you will get a grade
in your med school classes so you have to try but that can work to your favor because
if you are doing really well in your classes and you get those A's then it looks really
good in comparison to a school that's just past fail and there's no really way to look
different from the rest of your peers and so I think there's definitely pros and cons
to it Stony Brook also has a lot of ability to work on patients in clinic because we're
the only dental school on Long Island so we actually have a really big waiting list of
patients that we need that was a big thing I thought about was I didn't want to go to
a big city that might have been saturated with dental schools and the students have difficulty
finding patients and so that was a big pro about Stony Brook is that we have a lot of
patients available to us and we like none of our students ever complain about not being
able to get their credits done by the time they graduate so that's a huge plus and something
everyone should look into when they're applying to a school but yeah I think those were like
my main points in deciding.
And late did you have to so I don't know some schools do this but you have to like find
your own patients or they kind of assign you patients?
As Stony Brook they assign you patients I think sometimes they're also passed down after
students graduate but they assign you patients.
I guess I mean that's even better for like a small class as I guess everyone has to know
each other at some point so more patients to go around like that may be better connections
to like from a D3 to like a D2 you know as you graduate kind of get their patients absorb
the patients stuff like that so yeah.
And it's also really nice because we have like bigs and so we have like two students
in the class above us who are like our mentors basically and the class above them and the
class above them and so already when you come in you have like six mentors which is great
and then so when you go into clinic actually during your D2 year you can assist D3s and
D4s and that's super helpful because you can learn from your upperclassmen and then you
can sometimes they'll let you like practice injections on patients and so it's just really
great super collaborative and very like strong mentor-mentee relationships at the school.
Yeah I know so you know you're a D1 right now right so it's like your second after your
junior how did how were your first couple months I guess let's go back a little bit
so how was your first couple months at D1 year what were your expectations going into
dental school and how did you do your experiences meet your expectations?
Yeah so I think one really big benefit for me was having an older sibling who had done
med school because you know we're thrown into the med school day one we don't start
in dental school classes at Stony Brook until the first month where we do morphology and
that's only once a week your entire first semester so every other day you're in the
med school and a big thing that people should know is we take NBME exams in the med school
which basically means the step one board style exams is the same format for all of your med
school exams and so going in I was super nervous as I'm sure everybody is but I think that
nervousness really got me a good kickstart into the studying day one I mean I might have
been a little jumping the gun but I was making sure to stay on top of the material from day
one and that was so helpful I would make my own Anki for the like for anatomy for example
and I thought that was so helpful because you're studying while you're making Anki off of your
PowerPoints and then you do the Anki you do your flashcards and that's just active recall
and it really helps because you don't have an exam every week or every other week we
had an exam every three to four weeks and so a lot of students had to go through that
learning curve of oh something I looked at you know first day of class I don't remember
anymore the week before the exam and Anki was super helpful for that because I was doing
my reviews every single day right so the week before the exam I had seen that material from
week one like 10 to 15 times already I knew it like the back of my head and so wait back
of my hand so that last week I could just do practice exams and that is very very important
because NBMEs that's like the number one thing that gives you an idea of what the questions
are going to be like you can know your material like that like nothing else and you can still
look at a question and have no idea what you're looking at because it's completely different
style than we're used to so a lot of the questions are patient vignettes which basically means
you'll have a question that's like 65 year old male presents to the clinic with these
these and these symptoms you'll have to diagnose what the patient has and then do a step after
that like you know what enzyme is deficient in this patient or what drug would you give
to treat this patient things like that so you have to have that higher level of thinking
and so your number one should be understanding the material within the first few weeks of
getting that those lectures and that last week should all be about just practicing and doing
practice questions and getting used to the style of questions that you're going to be
asked and so I think that going in super nervous and like getting a really good head start day
one is what set me up for success in the med school because I was never you know surprised
with what I saw when I got to the day of the exam and so you you know like that kind of
goes back to the DT right like you're going to use Akis and I already know like this is
probably the best thing to use yeah and like to be honest I really like if you see material
like one time you know what the F is going on and then you big Anki cards you kind of
your brain you're training your brain to see the material again and again and again so
that by the time you actually get to the test like you kind of know what's going on you know
what it is right it becomes like an H it on yeah you mentioned that like you take classes
at the med school so you want to do oral surgery so how did you kind of come to that conclusion
ready like you want to do or you're interested in that yeah so I have wanted to do oral surgery
since I was an undergrad I think that every time I shadowed it was the most interesting
procedures that I got to see I really liked watching extractions I really liked watching
what they did in the private practice but also a lot of the oral surgeons that I would
shadow would walk me through the cases they do in the OR there was one I remember that
I saw where he had to remove a tumor from the jaw and the patient was a lot older he
was elderly so he had to use a completely different technique than they would normally
do and go through the neck up into the jaw I was just like it was amazing and so interesting
to me I didn't want to go into dental school being like gung ho I'm going to do oral surgery
because I'm very aware that it's a very difficult path to go through and not that many people
are able to do it so day one I didn't go in being like I'm for sure OS like I was very
open to the other things you know the other options but I think things that made me realize
that I'm for like I do want to pursue that path is like I enjoyed studying for the med school
classes and that was so fun to learn about you know infectious disease and cancer and
biochemistry and I really enjoyed sitting down and doing the practice questions for
envy and ease so I was like if I enjoy this material I enjoy the procedures that they
do that's definitely a path that I think is the right one for me you do have to be aware
you know you have to get great grades in dental school you have to do well on the CBC which
is you know the exam that's similar to step one but it's for the oral surgery route and
that is something that I'm going to have to take soon but I think that figuring out that
you have that interest early on is really important so that you can prepare yourself
for the next few years.
And I think you know what you probably know Brandon Axelrod is yeah yeah so he taught
me he played basketball a couple weeks ago and he just took a CBC because I think he
was just he was saying that like you can take it once and then you can just take it again
later if you want like so you have to score it so like I was like you can just do that
is like yeah bro you can just take it and then like see how it is it's anymore and take
it again later so I guess like that's probably something you're probably going to do in the
soon so that's pretty interesting so I mean yeah I think oral surgery is like really it's
like what I mean blood's fine for certain cases like blood like and then and surgery is I'm
going to say it's I feel like it's the most like people people people just like go work
I guess sometimes yeah like it's just so interesting because you're going inside of a person or
whatever way you're going to go really taking his tooth out you just sutured up there's a
lot of blood coming at you blood splatter everywhere just bone splattering everywhere
usually put grafts into a person's jaw and then it can heal up like that's just saying
to me and I think that's I work in oral surgery often so I always see that all the time it's
like super cool to see and I think I'm not even going that route I'm not even sure yet
to really say that so but going in stills with the open mind is probably the best to
do I'm assuming no way there's so much stuff coming at you like you don't even know right
really know until you know it I guess yeah that's pretty cool so like how are your other
classes like how you know is a socialite at Sotyberg like how does everyone get along
like is it as hard as you thought it would be like like that kind of thing yeah I think
that the med school was definitely as hard as I thought it was going to be but I think
once you get used to the way that works for you and that took different amounts of time
for different people then it's just kind of you know rinse and repeat you do it for every
exam I did the exact same thing for all of my classes and it worked for me and so once
you find that for yourself you just have to put in the work and do it and so I think that
yeah it was grueling but it was it was a great time I really enjoyed the classes my classmates
like hate that I say that it's so gross and nerdy but I really enjoyed it and also a big
thing that I liked about the med school was we didn't have to be in person and so a lot
of the time like I had the whole day to choose how I wanted to spend my day and that's how
I was able to make time for the things that I enjoyed doing right so I would wake up go
to the gym as soon as I woke up and then come back and it was only like 11am I had the whole
day to just study so instead of watching lectures for me personally I like to go through the
board style materials and watch those kinds of things like boards and beyond or sketchy
and then take notes on that and then do my Anki and you know by the time it's like a
week before the exam I have a lot of Anki built up like thousands of cards and so I
would spend most of my day doing that and so that was really great is that I could pick
and choose how I study how I spend my day I would like sometimes spend days at a coffee
shop a lot of us would like hang out together in the library and just spend the whole day
there studying together so yeah I think that school wise it was it wasn't that bad it it
was exactly what I expected in terms of like social life I like really love my class I
think that's one great thing about having such a small class is like we're a weird really
close family already and like it's insane that I've only known these people for what
like eight months like it feels like I've known them for years and because we're now
in the dental school we're also getting closer to the D2s 3s and 4s which is really great
because you know you do get that mentorship but also you can just like do fun things with
them like we'll have school parties or you know we'll go get dinner somewhere together
and that's just really great just for morale right I'm going on asda trips so the American
Student Dental Association is probably the biggest club that I'm a part of right now
and I loved going on those trips you meet so many dental students from around the country
and just last like literally two days ago Saturday night our social chairs planned an
event with Columbia dental and NYU dental and we all just met at a bar in the in New York
City like all three of our D1 classes and we got to know each other and it was such a
great experience so I feel like because it's such a small community here it really gives
you like the ability to get super close with the people that you're around and collaboration
is key right yeah that's super cool I mean I feel like a small class size kind of like
makes it as if it's like undergraduate class like a very small and undergraduate class
when you see these people every single day you just kind of build more connections with
them you go closer with them and at the end of the day like that's the best space for
learning I guess so that's pretty cool so how so now you're second after your D1 right
so now when you get back to dental school are you kind of doing clinical things like
what are those courses like yeah so the first semester we had one dental school course dental
morphology which is basically where you're waxing up teeth and so that just really helps
you get an idea of the basics of dentistry it gives you an idea of what each tooth looks
like the numbering system where the grooves are just the terminology in general and then
this semester we started a ton of dental school classes as soon as we were out of the med school
so right now we are taking intro to perio we're taking karyology radiology oral bio and operative
and so we are taking a lot of classes at once but one thing that I think is different between
dental and medical school is the lecture content isn't as dense it's not going to be like you
might be taking a three hour class during the day but it's not going to be like taking
a three hour class in the medical school as in like you know it's not as dense the material
to study so it's not as as grueling so it sounds scary that you're taking five classes
at once or six classes at once but it's not as bad I think the biggest thing that we're
getting used to right now is the lab course which is operative so we're learning how to
do cavity preps right now and then we're going to get into restorations so it's the first
time we're holding a drill and that is one thing that you know you're going to have to
be aware of if you go to a school with the med school curriculum is you're not going
to start drilling day one like at other schools and if that is something that's important
to you then you wouldn't want to go to a school that has that med school curriculum so for
us we had day one of drilling like three weeks ago meanwhile we have friends at other dental
schools and like they already know how to do preps and restorations and they're moving
on to like removable and fixed already so that's definitely like a learning curve for
us but they really help you they give you a lot of time we have two times a week one
to five to start our preps and we can come in whenever after the Simlab is open all the
time and we can come in after hours to work on it a lot of us will like ask our D2 like
bigs or our mentors or friends just to come in and help us with it and so I don't think
that it's impossible it's definitely like a learning curve at the beginning but we're
all getting used to it I think that because it's like a small class size like even if
you guys started later maybe like like you catch up yeah even at schools like I know
Harvard has they don't start drilling until much later I feel like maybe like even D2
year but everyone I've gone to a couple of dental students they kind of say that you
just catch it because like they want you to be good right that's the point at the L school
so like one way or another you'll you'll get to the same level as the other dental schools
I suppose yeah so I mean like what else do you tell me about like so D1 year um see I
don't know like have you done any obstacles any like challenges any issues that way yeah
I think that like the biggest obstacle for most of us is finding that balance between
studying 24 seven and like finding time to do things outside and for that I would honestly
just say that it's really about time management and you can make time to do whatever you want
I'm like the kind of person who I can't study on a Friday night like I want to I want to
go out with my friends on a Friday night so I'm going to schedule the rest of my week
so that I can be off on Friday night or on Saturday or Sunday or I want to go to the
gym after class every day and so I'm going to make sure that I pack all of my stuff
and drive straight there from class even if we get out at five or five thirty so that
I can get that in a day it's really about priorities and people who tell you that you're
going to you're not going to have a life when you're in dental school and you're not going
to have time to do anything except study are completely lying because that is not true
at all it is really what you make of it and so I think that was like the biggest obstacle
right is you know day one you come in and you're like oh my god I have so much to do
I have so much I have to study and you feel guilty and when talks about the guilt of not
studying whenever you're awake and that was something that I had to get used to is I mean
I would wake up and before class I would try to get in some on key and then when I got back
from class I would try to get in some on key but it's really I mean it's it's like that
was saying like it's not a race it's a marathon like you have to keep up your mental health
because you're going to be doing this for so long that you don't want to get burnt out
in the first couple weeks for the first month and so you have to make the time to do the
things that you enjoy and trust it's not you might feel guilty but it's not going to if
you go out on a Friday night you're not going to get ten points lower on an exam just because
you weren't studying at ten p.m. I think that's that's so really even on a grad
school day that's pretty real. So like where do you see yourself going like in your D2
year right so I mean when you guys start D2 like when is D1 and then when is D2?
D1 ends first so like last day of June and then we have six weeks off it's the only year
we have six weeks off and then we start D2 year mid-August. Yeah so I think that where
I see myself it's it's going to be I'm I'm kind of like living in the moment right now
because it's super nice all I have to worry about is classes. Once summer break starts
I will be starting to study for the CBSC and that's a pretty grueling process I plan to
take it in February and so you know I've heard that D2 year is a lot of exams also the lab
work is difficult we take removable and fixed throughout the entire year and so there's a
lot of days that you're going to end up spending time past five that you're in the lab just
working on whatever assignment is due so yeah I honestly I'm just preparing myself for that I'm
trying to do all of the fun things now so that I don't feel like I'm missing out when I'm just
staying at home and studying for the CBSC but I'm looking forward to it I think that it's going to
be just a new journey. Sounds good I mean so you mentioned that you guys are like drilling now like
three three scurries are drilling what kind of things are you guys doing? Are you guys drilling
like practice dummies or like kind of like what exactly does that entail? So the first
day that we started drilling we had like a block and there was different shapes in it
and so you start by just like using a drill directly looking like the block is on the table
and you just try to fill in the shape you have to fill into a certain depth so there'll be
different colors for how thick enamel is which is like one millimeter and then a different
color for dentin and a different color for pulp and so it tells you if you're going too deep so
you want to make sure when you're drilling that you get to the exact depth that you want and that
gives you a little bit of practice and then the next day we start directly on a toot and we place
a rubber dam we put our type it on so like our teeth into like this mannequin that we have in SimLab
and we start with preps that allow you to use direct vision which basically means you don't need
to use a mouth mirror to do the prep the prep yeah the cowdy prep and so we started with a class
five and a class three just on the maxillary interiors and the next thing that we're going to
start working on is indirect vision so we're going to do that the exact same way we take a block
we place it inside the mannequin so we have to use a mouth mirror and our loops so that we can see
it from backwards almost like it's imagined like on the lingual or like the the back of your maxillary
interiors and then you start drilling that way and that is different right you have to get used to
seeing opposite vision and the depth and all of that getting used to the placement and then you
start doing the preps on those teeth that require indirect vision so they plan it really well and
I feel like they give us a lot of days for catch up too like I remember the first day not being good
at it and just I just pushed too hard on the drill and it just went straight through the dentin and
I was so upset I had to start over but everybody has to start over like literally you can't be
neurotic when you're drilling day one like it's going to take time to get used to it but we all do
that's pretty cool I mean did you do you feel like your artistic abilities that you did on a
grad and like all that stuff is it playing is it playing a good role in it 100% oh 100%
like I think just even the little things like I do eyeliner every day and like you know I have to
rest my hand on my face and then do it right like little things like that like you have the ways that
we have to hold our drill and our like our hand instruments you have there's certain techniques
like you can do like the modified pen or the inverted pen and all of those things you don't
even realize you do them in day to day things like when you're writing or when you're doing your
eyeliner and where you rest your hand and all of those little things definitely help you with the
drilling but also I know people who didn't paint growing up and they're really they're just like
naturals at it they're just great so it's not a requirement but it'll definitely help you I definitely
think that hand skills are something that you should practice before you come into dental school
sounds good I'm sure like if we do another episode like for years you'll be better at it to be honest
oh yeah I hope so because your client's like residency and stuff I guess right oh yeah definitely
yeah it's so pretty cool so I mean like do you have any last like minute like uh advice to
pre-enals you know entry dental score just don't really know uh you know penistry's right for that
yeah I think that the number one thing you can do to know if it's right for you is to shadow
and talk to dentists ask them what their day to day is like what they enjoy doing make sure that you
see general dentistry a lot but also see specialties and kind of see like the range of what you can do
within the field in terms of preparing for the application cycle being a pre-dental student is
very difficult obviously there are so many aspects to the application and the number one thing I would
say is to utilize your mentors whether they're your peers your peers can be a mentor and also
upperclassmen students in dental school and your advisors and really just try to take advantage of
everybody around you it should never be a competition ever it should always be very collaborative
work together and that's like the best way you're gonna have success thank you for the words I mean
yeah I mean uh I would sell even we are pre-enal society here like guys like try to find uh you
know even alumni of the pre-enal society they're all in dental school now like Trevor reach out to
me a couple questions like they even come like you came the other day um like I said as many
questions as you can get these are the people that you're trying to beat future right so I want
people that you know have already gone through it so anyway thanks for coming on really appreciated
I had a really good time looking today and good luck on your your journey too you're applying this
right yeah actually two months so I got a the last thing I kind of have to do is my personal
statement just kind of get that uh more true to myself I did write a draft that I wasn't really like
feeling like it was myself so yeah something that's more I already know what I'm gonna write about
but I'm gonna write about that more like a basic experience I had so awesome yeah and then I guess
what is it I think that I think it opens May 9th to like put everything in right and then you submit
on June 1st yeah like I think it's at May 30th I'm not even sure but I think it'd be on June 1st
same thing whatever um that's pretty much it and somewhere I guess but yeah it's uh it's pretty
crazy like the looking back like freshman year sophomore year and I'm already a junior now so
like now could be a senior okay and then I'll just find out how it goes yeah it goes so fast and I
think something else on itself like you know it's like try to try to not figure it out but if you're
interested in like medical or dental either way try to get into the offices like maybe fresh
spring year so you kind of know like what path you want to go on that's kind of what I had to do so
I was initially pre-med a lot of people were pre-med whatever um and I started shadowing
like my general dentist the one that I had I got at Islam and honestly that's what kind of jumped
started my journey and then from there it was just like it's like a snowball you just keep going to
things and keep exposing yourself to new things and it just it just uh you find a community of
other pre-dentals that want to do the same thing as you so that's like the best way to learn and I
know there's a lot of advisors out there to help you on a journey but the best advisors are people
that do the same thing to you so your peers is actually so yeah so just try to try to get as
much exposure as you can so everything then it all it you'll figure everyone's like yeah
no it just comes it always is so stressful in the moment but everybody figures it out and
I would also say like not to be worried if you don't hear from schools in August and September
I remember being so nervous about that like other people in my class were already hearing back from
schools about interviews and I ended up getting several interviews just later and so really try
not to compare yourself when you're in the application cycle during that process those like
six months where you're waiting you really have to find something get a hobby get like something
new just start doing something else because you need to stop thinking about it like I remember
that was a big thing it was like I was just gonna be getting texts like oh did you hear like I got
an interview and it was so stressful but it works out for everybody like you will definitely be
prepared by the time you apply and just because you don't hear first doesn't mean you're not
going to hear it's basically my thing all right so thanks for coming on and we'll uh we'll uh
try to have you on in a couple years probably whenever you're when you have like more knowledge
I guess more to shit yeah definitely good luck with your application cycle and let me know if you ever had any help