Category: Portfolio

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AADSAS Application Advice Dental Assistant Dental School Portfolio Tips Website

UCSF Caries Management by Risk Assessment (CAMBRA) FREE Online Course + Signature Track Giveaway

UCSF200UCSF is once again offering their free online course about Caries Management by Risk Assessment (CAMBRA) to those interested in dental hygiene and a more modern approach of preventative dentistry. Dr. Featherstone, the Dean of UCSF School of Dentistry, teaches the concepts of CAMBRA which he developed over the past few decades over a 6 week online course through the popular website Coursera.org.

This course will provide the scientific basis for caries (dental decay) risk assessment and practice interventions. You will immediately be able to apply “caries management by risk assessment” into your clinical setting or into your personal health care.

This will be the second time the course is offered and best of all it is FREE for the standard version! There are several optional pay grades such as the verified certificate through Signature Track and/or 12 continuing education credits for the state of California.

I enrolled in the first session of this course back in October 2013 and overall it was very informative and a fun change of pace from your typical college curriculum. Dr. Featherstone does his best to keep you entertained by talking about his adventures around the world between each segment. I opted into the verified certificate  and verification page (Signature Track) so that it can be added to my online profiles such as LinkedIn. You can view my verification page here if interested in learning more about this option offers. A verified certificate (optional) currently costs $69 dollars. I am hosting a giveaway for one free Signature Track course. The giveaway details are at the end of this post!

The course will begin on March 31st and run through May 9th. The course requires 4-6 hours per week in order to watch the lectures, read the material, complete the online multiple choice quizzes, and answer the prompts. I think it is a great opportunity for pre-dental students and an excellent achievement to place on your application for dental school. The course covers the following topics:

Week 1:

  • Understand what dental caries is
  • Understand the concept of the caries balance
  • Know the three principal pathological factors of caries formation
  • Understand that multiple bacterial species are responsible for dental caries
  • Understand the role of frequent ingestion of fermentable carbohydrates in dental caries
  • Recognize hyposalivation, how this occurs, and its importance in caries progression

Week 2:

  • Refine the concept of the caries balance
  • Know and understand the multiple caries protective components in saliva
  • Understand demineralization and the role of fluoride
  • Understand remineralization and the role of fluoride

Week 3:

  • Understand remineralization and the role of fluoride
  • Understand how fluoride interacts with cariogenic bacteria
  • Know the three main mechanisms of action of fluoride
  • Know about fluoride toothpastes and fluoride mouthrinses

Week 4:

  • Know about fluoride products for the dental office and for home use by prescription
  • Know why high concentration fluoride products are used for high caries risk individuals
  • Know the antibacterial products currently available for caries control
  • Understand the root caries process including similarities and differences with coronal caries

Week 5: 

  • Understand the distinction among disease indicators, pathological (biological risk) factors, and protective factors
  • Know that the CAMBRA risk assessment method is validated in clinical use in thousands of patients for 6 years through adult
  • Know the bacterial assessment methods
  • Understand the sequence for the entire CAMBRA method

Week 6:

  • Know how to assess caries risk for an individual as low, moderate, high, or extreme
  • Know the currently recommended chemical therapy for patients at low, moderate, high, or extreme risk
  • To study numerous examples of risk assessment and therapy and how to build this into the treatment plan
  • Understand the differences between risk assessment for young children, older children, and adults

Learn more about the course and register at https://www.coursera.org/course/cariesmanagement

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I am raffling off a Signature Track Course ($69 dollar value) to somebody on this website who fills out the Ask Elias form and attaches their confirmation page for the CAMBRA course. From all the entries, a random drawing will decide the winner! The form will only accept the following file types .doc|.docx|.pub|.pdf|.png|.jpg|.jpeg (limited for website security). If you are having difficulty with the attachment, submit the form without the file so I can contact you.

The raffle ends January 31st, 2014 and the winner will be announced shortly after!

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AADSAS Application Advice Dental School Portfolio Tips

How to Write a Personal Statement for Dental School

The AADSAS Dental School application prompt seems fairly straightforward at first, but can be difficult to answer in less than 4,500 characters (including spaces), roughly a page. The prompt for the past few years has been:

Your Personal Statement should address why you desire to pursue a dental education and how a dental degree contributes to your personal and professional goals.”

Writing a personal statement for dental school can be one of the most challenging tasks in preparation for the application process. It is highly advised to start early and have many revisions over a long period of time. Strategy is also a big part of having a strong personal statement that compliments an application. Many schools will request the completion of a secondary application which often includes a few short essays. It is important to have a variety of experiences brainstormed in advance so you have a better idea on how all your writing accent one another and add on to to your application’s uniqueness. For this reason, I recommend using the following categories to plan out your personal statement and brainstorm your secondary application topics.

  • Leadership
  • Shadowing/Assisting
  • Community Service
  • Manual Dexterity
  • Personal Interest (e.g. technology, music)

Create separate documents for each category and start listing all of your key experiences related to each group. After doing so, select several experiences from each category to further develop as possible experiences to use in a personal statement. Begin plotting out a basic outline and structure for your message. The goal of the personal statement is to emphasize your strengths without giving everything away. You don’t want secondary applications to seem dry and do not advance you as an applicant and future dental student. Address 2 or 3 of the following groups:

  • Talents and leadership
  • Commitment to something you care about
  • Shadowing/Assisting
  • Hardship

Using these groups ensures that your personal statement samples a variety of your characteristics that you feel make you a strong candidate for dental school. The personal statement should show what is important to you, why you want to be a dentist, and why you are a valuable addition to a dental class. Throughout your personal statement, discuss how and why your experiences have affected your decision to pursue dentistry.

Writing your first draft of a personal statement can be challenging. One of your priorities should be to have a strong opening paragraph that catches the readers interest. Members on the admissions council have thousands of statements to read and are not required to read each one in its entirety. The first paragraph decides if they will continue to review or put your application off to the side.

Often I get asked where to find examples of dental school personal statements, and while I have found various resources, I highly advise against reading any other dental personal statements until later in your writing process. I say this because reading other statements tends to make an applicant want to follow a similar structure to the statements reviewed. This is a problem because many of the freely available examples are used as templates by many pre-dental students and as a result are the most common structures. This can annoy admissions very quickly as there is no creativity to the personal statement when reading through hundreds of these in a few days. For this reason, I will not be supplying examples to read, including my own. However, I will discuss the content of my personal statement to some degree.

One of my first articles on this website, Why Dentistry?, had a writing exercise with an example of my answer to the question “Why Dentistry?”. While none of this writing exercise was used in my personal statement, it helped me first put my answer into words that others could understand. In the article I say,

This write up does not need to be perfect. The exercise is designed to “outline” what is important to your story and to help you stay on focus when telling your story to others. It is not meant to be memorized and regurgitated. Here are some key points of my story that together show my interest in dentistry:

  • I mentioned my interest working with my hands.
  • I looked into career choices and saw what appealed to me in dentistry
  • Experienced dentistry by shadowing
  • Took the initiative and started working as a dental assistant
  • Memorable experience that explains the joy dentistry gives me”

Don O. over at Inquarta did an excellent job writing strategy guides for a dental personal statement. I recommend his article “How to Write a Winning Dental School Personal Statement” prior to starting to write a draft of your statement. You can check out the rest of his dental school personal statement posts here. I used his post to better understand what the personal statement means to dental schools and what to focus on in writing a well developed paper.

While working on your personal statement, be sure to have others read it. People with a background in dentistry tend to give the best advice since they could relate to the content of your personal statement.  Keep in mind to keep all large edits in your own words. With plenty of writing in your secondary applications, admissions will be able to easily tell if your personal statement is actually written by you. If they differ, this may affect your applications integrity and possibly hinder an admissions decision.

Check out the Pre-Dental Student Doctor Network forums for FREE Personal Statement critiquing. Using this service will give you a good idea of how different people will react to your personal statement and to learn of your essay’s strengths and weaknesses and what changes to make accordingly. I would like to remind you to be courteous to these individuals and ask if they would like to review your personal statement before providing a copy. The thread for the last cycle was titled “Personal Statement Reviewing Service (2013-2014 Cycle)“, but is largely inactive now since the application cycle is coming to a close. Future reviewing services will be similarly titled and likely stickied at the top of the pre-dental forums.

If you have any questions during the process or would like to me review your personal statement, feel free to use the Ask Elias page! Good luck writing!

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Advice Background Information Dental School Portfolio Tips

My Personal Letter of Recommendation Experience

Prior to asking for letters of recommendations, I had reviewed what to-do and not to-do in order to receive strong letters of recommendation and on time. You can find much of this information on my post All You Need to Know about Letters of Recommendations and in the Letter of Recommendation section of the FAQs. While religiously following the strategies I have learned, several of my letters of recommendation did not go as smoothly planned. Planning ahead provided a reassurance that the letters of recommendation would be completed on time expecially in these unexpected circumstances.

It is important to review the requirements of the dental schools you intend to apply to. Some dental schools may require a letter of recommendation from a specific individual like a (general) dentist, chemistry professor, biology professor, etc. Based on my selection of schools (and in most cases), it was best to have a letter of recommendation from a dentist, a biology professor, a physics/chemistry professor, and a principle investigator in my research lab. The research lab letter of recommendation is focused towards the research funded dental schools. A fifth letter of recommendation was requested by a specific school in order to meet their unique requirement.

The following is a breakdown of each letter and any unique circumstances/complications:

  • Dentist (Prosthodontist)
    • Requested from a specialist  that I have known and worked closely with for many years.
    • Least formal request (email) since I was hundreds of miles away.
    • A previous letter had been drafted for a job 3 years ago and letter was updated with further developed for dental school applications.
    • No documents requested (familiar with my experiences).
    • Conclusion: Close friends. Submitted on time no problems other than a identification verification with letter of recommendation storage service.
  • Biology
    • Requested from a Human Physiology professor in early January whom I have taken two classes with.
    • Asked through email for an appointment and summarized the appointment’s reason.
    • Dressed professionally with a suit and a portfolio of documents.
      • Professor commented on professionalism.
      • Declined any documents. Professor prefers to write letters of recommendation based on previous knowledge.
        • This was an unexpected. However, if I was writing a letter of recommendation, I would do the same.
    • Brief interview with professor about dentistry.
    • Letter of recommendation received within the time frame.
    • Conclusion: ALWAYS come professional and prepared. It can have a significant impact in situations just like this.
  • Physics
    • Requested from a mechanical physics professor in late December.
    • Personal interaction with professor.
    • Asked in person for a letter of recommendation after office hours and provided a portfolio.
    • Professor took a 6 month international vacation making it difficult to communicate.
    • Emailed a few reminders over 4 months and offered to ask another professor for a recommendation if she could no longer.
    • Letter completed in April.
    • Conclusion: In this case it really paid off to ask early. I would have been in trouble if I only asked 2 months in advance.
  • Research Principle Investigator
    • Requested from principle investigator from drug addiction research lab in May.
      • Waited until after several research events and awards in may.
    • Provided portfolio to compliment research achievements.
    • Principle investigator is also Dean of the Graduate School and is very busy.
    • Deadline of letter of recommendation near that of many research grants. As a result letter could not be completed on time.
    • Conclusion: Be weary of your letter writer’s schedule. They are busy people too and this can delay your application if not requested early enough.
  • Priest
    • Priest of nearly a decade. Served as an alter boy.
    • Requested a letter of recommendation and provided a resume.
    • Completed and received by dental school within 2 weeks!

 

As you can see from my experiences, no two situations were alike. Take some advice from my experiences and be sure to plan ahead, ask early, and come professional and prepared as if you are going to an interview for dental school. If you attend a large university, expect many other students to be asking for letters of recommendation. If you attend a research institution, professors are extremely busy managing time between lectures and research. In cases like these, be sure to give your letter writer as much time as you can. They will greatly appreciate it and write you a better letter.

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Advice Background Information Dental School Portfolio Tips

Why is Manual Dexterity Important?

Manual DexterityHello everyone! My name is Kristine Angeles, and I am the Internal Vice President for the Pre-Dental Society at UC Irvine, and I am Elias’ guest blogger.

As a returning board member for UC Irvine’s Pre-Dental Society, a lot of our members ask me, “What can I do to become a more competitive dental school applicant?” A competitive applicant is well rounded both academically and personally. It is important to focus on the following areas: recommended science courses that dental schools like such as anatomy and or biochemistry, exploring dentistry such as shadowing and assisting, and involvement in giving back to the community. Many other components make a strong dental school candidate, with the most frequently overlooked being manual dexterity.

When the idea of manual dexterity comes up, members ask me for advice on what they can do to prove their hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. As a child, I have always loved drawing and painting, and was able to hone these abilities by practicing them during my leisure time. As I grew up, I got exposed to many mediums in which I can express my artistic ideas. I started to explore as many art forms such as printmaking, woodcarving, tying knots and cross-stitching. Although these are excellent ways in which one can sharpen fine motor skills, there are far more things one can do.

What is manual dexterity?Sistine Chapel

Manual dexterity is the ability to perform fine motor skills using ones hands and eyes in an orderly fashion. These skills might come naturally for some people such as the legendary pianist Mozart , or Michelangelo’s lifelong painting found at Sistine Chapel, but unfortunately, these abilities do not develop over night for most people.  Luckily though manual dexterity is something we can practice and truly polish over time.

What are some things I can do to refine my manual dexterity skills?

I have provided a list of activities that I have found useful in practicing fine motor skills. Please note that there are far more things that can be done to enhance one’s manual dexterity, this is merely a list.

  • Learn a musical instrument that require extensive hand-eye coordination such as the piano
  • Draw and paint
  • Woodcarving, sculpting and linoleum printmaking
  • Sewing, cross-stitching, crocheting, knitting
  • Soldering
  • Jewelry making

In practicing manual dexterity, do not forget to find something that you truly enjoy doing! Make it into a hobby, and really hone those skills. Good luck!

Categories
AADSAS Application Advice Dental School Portfolio Tips

ADEA AADSAS Unofficial Blank Application with Character Limit Fields

aadsas_logoHey everybody!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Life has been very hectic trying to get everything together to apply for dental school. Any free time I have had has been going towards my research.

I have been working on a file for the past few days to help pre-dental students prepare for the AADSAS application. The document has fields as well as descriptions of every section of the application. On the areas of the application with a character limits, I have incorporated a character limit fields to help applicants know where the limit is and hopefully write better and more concise descriptions.

I would recommend any pre-dental student at ANY stage to download this file and begin to fill it out. It is a great way to help you keep track of your achievements, work experience, volunteer hours, etc. I wish I had a document like this to fill out over the past four years. Regardless if you use it or not, PLEASE make sure to keep good records of  volunteer services including hours and dates!

Download the ADEA AADSAS Unofficial Blank Application with Character Limit Fields (v1.0) HERE!

I would also recommend using this wonderful Unofficial AADSAS GPA Calculator I found. Ortho88 on StudentDoctor.net made it a few years back. Ortho88 is a pre-dental student at UC Berkley and a member of the UC Berkeley Pre-Dental Society. For those on the quarter system, please use the unit conversion box in the top right corner to convert quarter system units to semester system equivalent units.

AADSAS Unofficial GPA Calculator

I am nearing my DAT testing date and will most likely remain fairly inactive until mid July. If you have any questions please submit them through the Ask Elias page!