A dentist from India who finished dental school in my home country in August of 2012, I have given my life to dentistry and never looked back, always full steam ahead. Shortly after my graduation, I became an integral part of the XXXX Dental Clinic in XXXX, my home city, giving my all for the last six years. For family issues, I have needed to remain in India for the past few years, but these concerns are now fully resolved. Each year I have wanted to apply to an Advanced Standing Program in the USA for foreign-trained dentists, but the time has not been right until now.
I am pleased that I have grown enormously since completing dental school on many personal and professional levels, studying, and specializing in different dental areas. I have fully participated in the research, especially a comparative study of children's oral health in government vs. private schools, resulting in my first publication. I then published a cross-sectional of student levels of awareness of biohazards and waste management among dental and medical students in India. I am also published on malocclusion among school children. Children’s oral health is my first and deepest professional love; thus, after earning my DDS/DMD in the USA, I hope to continue at some point toward the development of an innovative specialization in Pediatric Dentistry. I have been to the USA on several occasions and spent critical time there, volunteering and daydreaming about restarting my career in America. I am in awe of advances in dentistry and hungry to study in a state-of-the-art institution.
While still in adolescence, my mother spent more than a year in a most uncomfortable and frustrating battle with trigeminal neuralgia. Throughout her diagnosis and treatment, I closely followed everything and bonded with her dentist, replaying our conversations numerous times, and hanging on to every word he said. By the time she was cured, I was left curious about dentistry, and I began going to the dentist’s clinic to observe dental procedures. I could not have enjoyed these visits more, watching him working on patients and listening to how he came to a diagnosis. By young adulthood, I was thoroughly hooked on dentistry as the calling I wanted to pursue.
As I progressed through dental school, I treasured each interaction with patients and their families. I rejoiced at my capacity to calm the nerves of the elderly needing treatment. My particular interest in pediatric dentistry also began as a dental student - my sense of internal satisfaction was enormous. As a student and beyond, I have given myself entirely to volunteer activities in the community, dental screenings, treatment camps held in nearby villages, an orphanage, a school for the blind, etc. I realized the importance of oral health information early on since I was deeply saddened to see periodontitis so widespread among children due to poor oral hygiene.
Earning my DDS/DMD degree in a distinguished institution in the USA will prepare me for a lifetime of innovative, global dentistry, learning from my fellow students and mentors. I keenly look forward to long conversations sharing challenges and strategies with students from throughout the Global South, where we face enormous, special challenges.
My ambition is to contribute to the oral health of as many individuals as possible through clinical practice and volunteering my services to the children of underprivileged communities. I am convinced that a life full of constant challenges to overcome is the best way to spread one’s wings and fly professionally. I am now in a position, with the full support of my family, to give myself to dentistry in the USA 24/7 for as long as it takes to rise to the top of my capacity as an oral health professional.
One highlight of my career was helping organize the Indian Dental Conference closest to my city in 2007 and then going on to help manage our region’s Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry conferences for the next several years. On my extended visits to the USA, I assisted with dental awareness camps organized in and around Phoenix, Arizona.
The underserved stand at the center of my heart and mind, and it is here where I hope to distinguish myself in dentistry over the long term, helping those who need my help the most, those whose need is great but lack access to care. In addition to Pediatric Dentistry, my other great special love is Endodontics. I hope to receive special training and opportunities for excellence in pediatric endodontics. At the very center of my professional dreams stand the homeless. I am sure that attending to their oral health care needs in the USA will bring me full circle across oceans and time, and I will find my most profound joy.
Thank you for considering my application to your doctoral program in dentistry.
Pediatric Dentist to IDP Personal Statement