what made you choose dentistry?
Title. I’m going into my second year of college and I’m going to be honest: I still have no idea what to do with my life. I know for sure I want to do something in health. However, I cannot for the life of me choose whether to pursue medicine, dentistry, optometry, psychotherapy or even public health as a career choice.
To me, it feels like every single one has their own unique lists of pros and cons but my motivations for my career come down to one thing—I want my work to have an impact on people.
Dentistry ended up standing out to me because I could help people feel comfortable in their smiles again. I struggled with my self-image (and specifically my smile) in middle and high school so this felt very personal to me. I know the defining question for most people deciding between dentistry and medicine is “do you like learning about the whole body or just teeth?”. The thing is, I still like studying these “whole body” concepts, but I’d totally be okay with just doing dentistry as a career path—or honestly any part of the body.
If anyone has anything that helped them decide please lmk!