4 Reasons why A* students still fail dental school
1. Over-confidence
Dentistry is essentially a specialised branch or medicine and surgery. We're all aware that in other countries such as the USA, you require a pre-medical degree. In the UK, you're allowed to start a course in Dentistry at the age of 18. It's not discussed much but this requires a large amount of maturity, you'll be leaving as a qualified medical professional in five years!! The competition and rigorous nature of the application process means you have to be pretty gifted to be admitted... leaving a dangerous trap of complaceny and over-confidence is some students.
NBA Basketball players Chris Paul and Lebron James were talking to some young rookies and they said "Some people get to the league and feel like they've made it. They've got the money, they've got the sponsorship deals. But some of us realise that it's just the start. We gotta start all over again because we're in a different league now"
Dental school is just the very beginning, not the end.
2. Multi-disciplinary
Dentistry is one of those fascinating careers. You have to possess excellent problem solving skills, fanatastic communication abilities, exceptional manual dexterity and be able to understand and memorise large quantities of information. Therefore, it becomes increasingly less likely that you will be the best in your class in all of these categories. In order to succeed in Dentistry, you'll have to work on your weaknesses to become a great clinician. Prior education in sixth form didn't test this large variety of skills, therefore there's more personal and academic development to complete than ever.
3. Exam-orientated
As previously mentioned, excelling in written exams is just one part of the ball game. Now, you have to be able to apply your knowledge to real life patients and be able to prioritise exactly what is the most important. Written exams will largely be what most people are used to, especially in pre-clinical years. But before you know it, there's a drift to OSCEs, unseen and seen case presentations and even the written papers become more clinical and applied! Those that are purely bookworms need to adapt to seeing Dentistry in real life. You’re now dealing with real life people, with real life expectations. No longer do you walk into an exam which is just “Organic Chemistry”, you walk into an Adult Restorative case which encompasses many, many, many different topics.
4. No passion
It's no-ones place to decide what are the right or wrong reasons for someone to enter the dental field. However, regardless of what the reasons are, those reasons have to be strong enough to ensure you immerse yourself in the content and to ensure you can genuinely maintain this passion for the rest of your career. Five years is a seriously long time. If you entered Dentistry without much thought, you run the risk of struggling in dental school. One of the best quotes that I have ever heard is.
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both"
When you start to find the fun in Dentistry, the success looks after itself.
Let us show you ways you can excel in dental school. Click below to see some of our tips & tricks 👇