You’ve Heard of the Caries Balance, how about the Dental School Balance?

So you got accepted into dental school, now what? How do you plan on surviving this next chapter on this rigorous path towards your dream of becoming a doctor? Do you plan to take it easy? Or do you plan on spending endless hours behind your notes and typodont? A majority of us will fall into the latter category, aiming for that 4.0 GPA, whether it be because we’re afraid to flunk, we want to be the best dentist we can be for our future patients, or because we intend on specializing. While all these reasons are completely valid, I think it’s worth taking a step back to ask ourselves “but at what cost?”. Often, we forget that the bottom line is this: we’re doing our best in dental school because we want a better life for ourselves. But in doing so, we end up sacrificing our lifestyle, our values, our hobbies, and even sometimes our friends and family – in doing so, we forget to take care of ourselves. Yes, school is important but so is your physical and mental wellbeing. Whether you are just beginning dental school, in middle of it, or nearing the finish line, it is important to reevaluate how your time is spent, so that you don’t drop diamonds while trying to collect stones; in other words, so that you don’t let your health diminish while focusing on achieving good grades. In the end, you are trying to succeed in dental school for yourself, so why not learn to take care of yourself along the way?

So, how do we do it? For starters, you can set small attainable and repeatable goals that won’t disrupt your current work habits and lifestyle. These goals can be as easy and small as bringing some fruits with you everyday to school, to getting up 2 minutes earlier to make your bed every day, or to doing squats while brushing your teeth. The idea is to build discipline. At first, it might feel like a chore, as if you HAVE TO; but as it becomes more routine, it’ll begin to feel more like a lifestyle, just like brushing and flossing your teeth before going to bed or doing your hair in the morning. By keeping the tasks small and simple, it minimizes the risk of feeling like an inconvenience and therefore eventually quitting. As these small goals become easier, you can begin to increase the difficulty of these attainable goals. For me, it helped a lot to always have a minimum “quota” to meet each week. Whether I had 0 or 4 midterms, I would always aim to go to the gym twice a week or meal prep the first 3 lunches of each week. By having minimum quotas, I’ll often squeeze that workout in Monday morning so I got it out of the way, or I’ll go right after an exam as a destressor. And again, at first it may feel like a hassle, but as it becomes routine, you’ll begin to find that it’s not as time consuming as you used to think!

What about school? For those who are beginning dental school, I found it extremely helpful and a productive use of my time to attend in-person lectures. Whether I understood the topic or not, I did my best to be present and pick up key words and phrases that the professor will repeat or emphasize and jot that down. This effectively helps me save time because when I review the material for the first time, it feels as if I’ve seen the material already despite not understanding the content the first time, and it will engrain key points in my mind. Additionally, you can also apply the “small attainable and repeatable goals” idea here e.g. checking your email and handling your extracurricular tasks every morning 30 minutes before class, or setting aside 3-4 hours every week for preclinical practice and quality technology-free studying time.

Once your schedule has been crafted with “small attainable and repeatable goals” for physical activity, nutrition, social activities, destressing activities, extracurricular activities, etc., you can then see where you can appropriately allocate time for studying. This might across as if I’m promoting the idea that academia comes last – I’m not. In fact, I believe that it is extremely important, but it is something that is very time-consuming thus can very easily result in negligence of the other aspects of our lives. By dedicating small amounts of time to take care of yourself, you’ll be increasing your quality of life and health, and as a result, you might even see an upwards trend in your grades with less effort and stress as you’ll be more productive and in a better position to take on the strenuous workload. Do yourself a favor and love your body. Stretch and strengthen it, fuel it, and rest it. Dental school is only the beginning of your journey. While I am not there yet, I know that these next 30+ years of practice will certainly take a toll on our bodies, thus we should plan ahead and keep it in the best condition it can be going in to it. I hope that this read makes you believe that it is possible to have a life and excel academically – it just begins with you being willing to do it. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need any further guidance or just want to chat!

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This post was contributed by Mike Pham, Task Force Co-Chair at ADEA COSRF District 2 and student at New York University College of Dentistry ('23). Instagram: @Phamtasticmike