I have personally been through the process of applying to dental schools for an advanced standing program and I know how it feels when it comes to writing a personal statement especially when you have no clue what to write and what exactly they are looking for. When I was in need, somebody helped me and now its my turn to help others. Before I start, the following views are based on the advices/guidance I was given and from my own personal experience in this journey so far but you are the best judge for yourself.
The personal statement is one of the most important aspects of one's application which unfortunately is overlooked by prospective candidates. They are just worried about hitting the deck with scores above 90. A strong and very well written personal statement can make the all the difference. It is your first introduction to the admissions committee that also demonstrates your writing abilities.They are very experienced and they can actually make out a lot about you without actually seeing you just by reading what reflects from it.
A good personal statement should address why or how you became interested in dentistry, your past achievements and your vision of your future goals.You can mention what you can contribute to a given program if you are selected (this is also a potential interview question).
Why you ? Highlight aspects of your life that set you apart from other international dental graduates. Perhaps you have a unique cultural background that
broadens your perspective.Try to emphasize something about yourself that makes you a little different than the “average” applicant (achievements academically, in sports, any research experience, observership or dental assisting experience,any volunteer experience may not only be in dentistry but for any social cause), this will help you to “stand out from the crowd”. Admissions committees will read hundreds of personal statements; you should write in a way that attracts their attention and keeps them interested in what you have to say.
The personal statement should also allude to your professional aspirations. Be as specific as possible without making up goals. If you have a desire to do research,specialize in a particular area, focus on prevention and public health, or become a general practitioner, say what your professional career ideally would entail. You are not locking yourself into a particular career path by doing this. Everyone realizes that goals can change remarkably over the course of time, but being specific gives an idea about how focused you are.Be professional in your choice of words.
It wont be a bad idea to write a general sop which you can send to all the schools.In case you are very particular about some school then you can modify it a little bit to highlight the attributes that particular school is looking for in you. For instance some schools desire the candidates to have leadership qualities. For such schools write something that shows your leadership abilities, if you ever lead a group etc.You may also like to mention why did you come to US or why you selected this school over others.Find out some key points about that particular program and mention them in you sop. This shows that you are really interested in their program and that you actually did your homework.
Represent yourself accurately and positively.Don't be modest about your strengths and avoid mentioning weaker aspects of your application, such as poor TOEFL or NDBE scores.If there happen to be irregularities in your academic record or any other points which might need explanation, you can write about that but keep it brief and try to keep the main focus of your essay on the positive aspects.
Like any other essay a clear introduction, a body and a conclusion are a must. Make sure it is proofread, spell-checked, and grammatically correct.
You can take professional help also. There are agencies that charge you and write a SOP for you but I feel you are the best person to write about yourself. In case someone is writing for you just make sure you know whats written in your sop and review it before going for an interview. They may pick up few questions from it and ask you to elaborate.
Last piece of advice is that please do not make it too long.Be very precise and clear. With hundreds of students applying to these schools each term no one has the time or the patience to read all the junk. A good personal statement according to me is the one which is just about a page long and yet contains all that shows you as a bright and promising candidate. Some schools also mention that the personal statement be written in particular font size. Check for the requirements and modify accordingly.
All the very Best..!!!!
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" The Professional Man has no right to be other than a continuous student "
Quote of the day
Friday, July 25, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Drug Promises to Restore Sensation After Dental Visit
By ANDREW POLLACK
Published: May 12, 2008
For those who don’t like to drool, slur their speech or unknowingly bite their tongue after a visit to the dentist, help might be at hand.
A small drug company said it won approval Friday from the Food and Drug Administration to market the first drug meant to undo the effects of local dental anesthesia.
In clinical trials, the drug cut the median time it took for full sensation to return to the lips by about 75 to 85 minutes, or by more than half.
The drug, called OraVerse, was developed by Novalar Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company in San Diego. The company said it would begin selling the drug to dentists late this year for $12.50 an injection.
After a dentist finished a filling or some other procedure, he or she would inject OraVerse into the same spot where the anesthetic had been injected.
Is a drug really needed for what seems like a trivial use? Novalar and some dentists who advise the company said it might be useful for children, who can injure themselves by biting their lip or tongue without knowing it.
“Kids tend to chew on their tongue when it’s numb,” said Dr. Athena Papas, a professor at the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. The drug, however, is not approved for children younger than 6 or weighing less than 33 pounds.
Dr. Papas, an adviser to Novalar and an investigator in its clinical trials, said she thought the drug would appeal especially to those receiving cosmetic dentistry “who like to look good when they leave the dentist’s office.”
Novalar said its surveys showed great interest in the product among consumers and among dentists, some of whom said they would mark up the price of the drug as a source of profit.
With about 300 million anesthesia injections given by dentists each year, company executives say the drug could easily achieve sales of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
OraVerse is a formulation of a decades-old drug, phentolamine mesylate, which is used to treat severe episodes of hypertension.
When dentists administer lidocaine or another local anesthetic, they usually combine it with another drug called epinephrine, which acts to constrict the blood vessels. That keeps the blood from carrying away the anesthetic from the mouth too quickly.
OraVerse does the opposite, dilating the blood vessels and speeding up blood flow so the anesthetic can be carried away.
“We aren’t reversing the local anesthesia,” said Dr. Paul A. Moore, chairman of anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, who is an adviser to Novalar. “It is reversing the epinephrine.”
The label for the hypertension drug phentolamine contains warnings about heart attacks and occlusion of blood flow to the brain. Novalar said the label of OraVerse would also contain the warnings, but note that OraVerse is given in a different manner. In the clinical trials there were no serious side effects, Novalar said.
Novalar also said patients did not have pain because the anesthesia wore off more quickly, except for a little extra pain at the injection site. But the trials excluded people who got root canals or tooth extractions. Those patients would be expected to have lingering pain, and should not get Oraverse, Dr. Moore said.
In two trials of 484 patients in total, people were given either OraVerse or a sham injection. (Patients were blindfolded so they could not see the needle and, being numb, supposedly could not tell if the needle penetrated.)
People then tapped their lips every five minutes for five hours, feeling for sensation. Observers measured the symmetry of their smiles, checked for drool and listened to them read sentences.
About 41 percent of patients who got OraVerse reported normal lower lip sensation one hour after getting the drug, compared with 7 percent of those getting the sham injection. About 59 percent of those who got OraVerse had normal sensation in the upper lip after one hour, compared to 12 percent in the control group.
Courtesy "NEW YORK TIMES "
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Published: May 12, 2008
For those who don’t like to drool, slur their speech or unknowingly bite their tongue after a visit to the dentist, help might be at hand.
A small drug company said it won approval Friday from the Food and Drug Administration to market the first drug meant to undo the effects of local dental anesthesia.
In clinical trials, the drug cut the median time it took for full sensation to return to the lips by about 75 to 85 minutes, or by more than half.
The drug, called OraVerse, was developed by Novalar Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company in San Diego. The company said it would begin selling the drug to dentists late this year for $12.50 an injection.
After a dentist finished a filling or some other procedure, he or she would inject OraVerse into the same spot where the anesthetic had been injected.
Is a drug really needed for what seems like a trivial use? Novalar and some dentists who advise the company said it might be useful for children, who can injure themselves by biting their lip or tongue without knowing it.
“Kids tend to chew on their tongue when it’s numb,” said Dr. Athena Papas, a professor at the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. The drug, however, is not approved for children younger than 6 or weighing less than 33 pounds.
Dr. Papas, an adviser to Novalar and an investigator in its clinical trials, said she thought the drug would appeal especially to those receiving cosmetic dentistry “who like to look good when they leave the dentist’s office.”
Novalar said its surveys showed great interest in the product among consumers and among dentists, some of whom said they would mark up the price of the drug as a source of profit.
With about 300 million anesthesia injections given by dentists each year, company executives say the drug could easily achieve sales of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
OraVerse is a formulation of a decades-old drug, phentolamine mesylate, which is used to treat severe episodes of hypertension.
When dentists administer lidocaine or another local anesthetic, they usually combine it with another drug called epinephrine, which acts to constrict the blood vessels. That keeps the blood from carrying away the anesthetic from the mouth too quickly.
OraVerse does the opposite, dilating the blood vessels and speeding up blood flow so the anesthetic can be carried away.
“We aren’t reversing the local anesthesia,” said Dr. Paul A. Moore, chairman of anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, who is an adviser to Novalar. “It is reversing the epinephrine.”
The label for the hypertension drug phentolamine contains warnings about heart attacks and occlusion of blood flow to the brain. Novalar said the label of OraVerse would also contain the warnings, but note that OraVerse is given in a different manner. In the clinical trials there were no serious side effects, Novalar said.
Novalar also said patients did not have pain because the anesthesia wore off more quickly, except for a little extra pain at the injection site. But the trials excluded people who got root canals or tooth extractions. Those patients would be expected to have lingering pain, and should not get Oraverse, Dr. Moore said.
In two trials of 484 patients in total, people were given either OraVerse or a sham injection. (Patients were blindfolded so they could not see the needle and, being numb, supposedly could not tell if the needle penetrated.)
People then tapped their lips every five minutes for five hours, feeling for sensation. Observers measured the symmetry of their smiles, checked for drool and listened to them read sentences.
About 41 percent of patients who got OraVerse reported normal lower lip sensation one hour after getting the drug, compared with 7 percent of those getting the sham injection. About 59 percent of those who got OraVerse had normal sensation in the upper lip after one hour, compared to 12 percent in the control group.
Courtesy "NEW YORK TIMES "
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Contact Me
Dear Friends if you found something interesting in this blog, please spare a minute to post your valuable comments and suggestions.
For any queries and suggestions, you can contact me at
doctorsumeet@gmail.com
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For any queries and suggestions, you can contact me at
doctorsumeet@gmail.com
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From the author
I always used to hear about blogs but never knew what a "Blog" actually meant. So out of curiosity I landed into Blogger. I started with great enthusiasm but soon I was found myself short of thing to write about. I published jokes, interesting facts, news; inshort something about everything.
Soon I realized that this is going nowhere. Being a dental student I thought it will be much more interesting and informative if I dedicate my blog entirely to dentistry. The things I learn everyday and then forget, the things I never knew before about dentistry or the misconceptions I had in the field; to keep all that information safe at one place before it becomes part of history again; to tie it to the back of my brain someplace so that I can put them to practice and be a better health care professional.
This is one such effort.....
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Soon I realized that this is going nowhere. Being a dental student I thought it will be much more interesting and informative if I dedicate my blog entirely to dentistry. The things I learn everyday and then forget, the things I never knew before about dentistry or the misconceptions I had in the field; to keep all that information safe at one place before it becomes part of history again; to tie it to the back of my brain someplace so that I can put them to practice and be a better health care professional.
This is one such effort.....
Read more...
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About This Blog
The sole purpose of writing this blog is to be a continuous learner, to share information and to keep that information safe and easily accessible before it vanishes in pages of history.