I was a few years older than most of my classmates in dental school because I did not come to the USA until I was fifteen, and it took me several years to fully adapt to English to be competitive academically. Nevertheless, I was determined and accepted to XXXX University’s School of Dental Medicine, graduating in May 2010. My father, now a Computational and Applied Mathematics Professor at the University of XXXX, was a great inspiration and helped me towards my goal of becoming a state-of-the-art dentist. Since graduation, I have spent seven years eating, sleeping, and breathing in dentistry. I now have the maturity, insight, focus, direction, and solid foundation in general dentistry that will enable me to hit the ground running in your distinguished Endodontics Residency Program and inspire me to a lifetime of research and advancement in the area of dentistry that is closest to my heart and where my greatest passion lies: Endodontics.
I hope to give increasingly of my time to treating the underserved in the future, and it pleases me greatly that such a sizable percentage of the underserved share my native language. I still have family in Colombia and have visited over the years, spending significant periods working as a volunteer dentist alongside my aunt, a dentist, and another of my incredible family inspirations. We are from a small city with limited access, and I enjoy doing what I can and befriending the people. For my aunt and me, dentistry is not operating a business or simply providing a service but about devotion and commitment to care for one’s community to the best of their ability – always in constant learning mode.
I have paid careful attention to members of underserved communities who only seek dental care when they are in pain. This pulls at the strings of my heart most profoundly and inspires me to do all I can to help.
I have served as a bilingual teacher for an underserved community in Austin, Texas, and witnessed the great need for both adults and children. I have listened to many sad stories of ineffectual home remedies employed. I am also deeply troubled that many of our most vulnerable members of society find themselves forced to have tooth extractions rather than root canals because of the cost factor. I daydream of being able to save more teeth and extract fewer and fewer, with the underserved as well. Becoming a certified endodontist will allow me to have the most significant impact on my patient’s life. For me, Endo is both the most challenging and the most rewarding of all areas of dentistry; nothing brings me greater joy than alleviating my patient’s pain and saving the tooth in question. For me, that is hitting the bullseye.
I decided to open my solo practice two and a half years ago. Although it has been an excellent learning and life-changing experience, increasingly, I feel driven to specialize further, cultivating and treasuring my passion for Endodontics. I’ve developed great relationships with endodontists and spent much time talking to them about cases and lifestyles. I love that an endodontist gets to see and treat one patient at a time and that the patient gets the best possible care. I have been doing root canals for some time, and it is here that I want to focus on the many things I still must learn about file systems, cleaning and shaping, canal location, using the microscope, fractured teeth, etc. I know I will always have limitations as a general dentist doing endodontic therapy, and I want to overcome them. I am already planning the adjustments that need to be made and details to become part of your team since I am established in XXXX, Texas, with my family and my practice. However, I am eager to start because Endo is my first love.
Thank you for considering my application.
Endodontics Residency Personal Statement Sample