I could not be happier in my current professional position as a Teaching Assistant in Endodontics at XXXX University. I teach second-year dental students the basics of Endodontics primarily by demonstrating techniques in the dental simulation lab. This experience has helped me better appreciate how much I want to combine the practice of Endodontics with teaching Endodontics in the future. Thus, I am an international dentist highly motivated to excel in your Advanced Placement DDS Program.
While born and raised in Canada, my family is from India, and I decided to return there for dental school. My five years in India earning my degree in dentistry will always be with me, mainly because it enhanced my appreciation for the cause of oral health advancement in the Developing World and my dedication to helping the underserved. I look forward to a professional lifetime practicing dentistry here in North America. Still, I also look forward to returning to India to teach Endodontics sometime in my career. I moved to India while still 17 years old to begin dental school in 2007, returned to Canada after completing dental school in 2012, and then moved to Texas in 2015 for my preceptorship in Endodontics. I am currently living in XXXX, TX, which I very much enjoy, and I have spent this last year taking advantage of opportunities to practice my Spanish, which has been rapidly improving. This language is especially dear to my heart. I work extremely hard to improve it because I see it as helpful in helping the underserved here in North America, with increasing numbers of immigrants who speak primarily Spanish.
One of the reasons I left for India immediately after graduating high school was to spend time with my grandmother, who was suffering from cancer. Within a few months, I was also a full-time student at the Christian Dental College in Ludhiana, Punjab, allowing me to continue spending weekends and holidays with my grandmother.
During my senior year of high school, I applied to BSc programs and was accepted by the University of Western Ontario, Toronto, and Ryerson University. However, I did not follow through with those applications because I had decided to go to India. Going to the land of my family’s origin was a great draw, along with my grandmother; soon, I adjusted to going straight to dental school rather than first earning a degree in the physical sciences. The vast need for oral health care in India helped make me a highly motivated dentist with a keen awareness of and concern for the desperate plight of India’s poorer classes regarding having little to no access to adequate dental care.
My long-term goal is to practice dentistry in North America and India and build and cultivate ties with the North American academic world. I look forward to balancing teaching and clinical work in the future. Central to my plans are frequent and lengthy return visits to India to conduct dental camps in rural areas and teaching, once a year, at the Christian Dental College, where I received my dental education.
Especially as a woman, I am very much troubled by how some women in rural areas of India have no dental care because they are from very conservative sectors of our society that insist that women see only a female dentist; often, there are no women dentists available in rural areas and small villages, and I also want to address this issue, working to identify and target for care specifically that segment of the Indian female population that only a female dentist can see.
While a dental student in India, I participated in extra-curricular activities: volleyball, track and field, basketball, dance, and extempore speeches. I was active in community outreach programs in rural villages around Punjab, serving in remote areas where patients could not afford to pay but required immediate dental treatment.
After earning my DDS, I plan to pursue a residency position in Endodontics. I gained experience working as a dentist in India and have worked as a Dental Observer & Volunteer Assistant (2012-2015) in Canada, Florida, and California.
I also spent long hours doing clinical shadowing at XXXX University in Montreal in 2014. In Houston, I have been serving as a community volunteer at The XXXX Day Care Center since November 2015 to enhance my community involvement.
Many of the patients I have attended here in Houston speak only Spanish. Therefore, I enrolled in online Spanish classes two months into my program. I can now speak basic Spanish with my patients, enough for us to understand each other, and the language barrier no longer seems to get in the way. I plan to improve my Spanish until I can speak it fluently at the service of the underserved, to which I look forward to devoting as much time as possible as I move forward in dentistry.
Thank you for considering my application.
CAAPID Personal Statement Examples