Final post: Shadowing Dr. John Moffatt

Total hours for this semester: 26 hours

Since I have already completed over 24 hours this semester, I decided to try to take my spare time and shadow a local dentist in the area to improve my dental application for the upcoming cycle. Thankfully, one of my classmates, Trey Moffatt, has a father who runs an amazing practice in the area and I was able to shadow him.

I had an amazing time shadowing Dr. Moffatt. His office is extremely warm and comforting and you can really tell that he always puts the the well-being of his patients above everything else. I was able to watch him perform several crown replacements as he walked me through what was going on. He was a great teacher, and an even better conversationalist. I was able to relate to a lot of the things he was talking about, whether it was about dentistry or just life in general. Dr. Moffatt has a such a great relationship with his patients that at one point I was beginning to think that every single one of his patients was a close family friend. He displayed amazing technique when dealing with younger patients and I have learned a lot from him in that area.

I remember there was one thing specifically that Dr. Moffatt said that especially resonated with me. He said that when him and his wife first started their practice (his wife is also a dentist as well), one of their promises was that they would always make sure that every patient felt as little pain as possible. He was true to his word, as he always applied topical anasthetics before local anesthetics, as well as performing the necessary nerve block if the patient was still feeling discomfort. It may take a little longer to do some procedures in the long run, but in the end you can tell that it has paid off because just about every patient he saw that day seemed to enjoy being in his office. I have already contacted him again and will be shadowing him this Tuesday again before I move back home for the summer.

Future Plans

Since I already finished my required hours of 24 (26 total) this semester, I will discuss my future plans after completing this program. My original plan was to do this program to boost my GPA and improve my resume, then apply to dental school this next cycle. I will still be doing that, but I have added on some further tasks that I plan to complete before the start of this upcoming application cycle (which opens up in the summer). This last month of the semester I have scheduled myself to shadow a local dentist in the New Orleans area to increase my shadowing hours and show dental schools that I am still very interested in the art of dentistry. I will be shadowing Dr. Moffat, who is my current classmate's father (Thanks Trey!) Secondly, I have accepted an invitation to complete a 4 semester Master's in Oral Health Sciences program at Boston University's School of Dental Medicine. The track record of students getting into dental school after completion of this program is impeccable, and this gives me the chance to sit side by side with current first year dental students as I will be taking their first year Biochemistry and Physiology classes with them, along with other dental related courses. I was recommended to this program by the dentist I shadowed recently. He said that it was one of the main reasons that he was successful in getting into school after he did not receive admission on his first try. Lastly, I have decided that I am going to study and retake the DAT over the 3 month period that I have off over the summer. My DAT score was not a weakness in my application by any means, but I felt as if I would have been wasting my summer away if I wasn't being productive and trying to further improve my chances for admission into dental school. I am actually very excited to start studying for the DAT this time around because I'm interested to see how my study skills and knowledge that I learned during this master's program will help me increase my score.

Total this semester: 26 hours

February

Since I already completed the required hours, I will be talking about how this program has helped me improve my resume and my study skills. First of all, I really enjoy how Dr. Clarkson has put together the course. The information is easily accessible and is organized very well on the pharm wiki website. I wish every course I have ever taken had that much work and detail put into the presentation of information.

This course has helped me realize my full potential and I am very grateful for that. Before this program, I had some pretty poor study skills. I was very unorganized and I would try different things for different tests without actually figuring out which one worked best for me. This course has taught me that the most important thing about studying is to start earlier than you think so that you can feel prepared. I can’t tell you how many times I would get up to the day of a test and wish that I had just one more day to master the material. After the first couple tests last semester, I realized that I was going to have to adapt and change my study skills or I was not going to succeed. I ended up doing just that and I’m proud of the results.

Total for this semester: 26 hours

January

This last Christmas break was very hectic for me. I made the trip back home after our fall semester so that I could spend time with my family and friends over the holidays. I ended up continuing to help out at the Lights of Hope event which ran through Christmas time, only this time, I was helping with the tear down and packing up of the event's various displays and activities. The setup of the event was very chaotic, but I had no idea how demanding the tear down would be as well. Lights of Hope is setup in a park area that the city grants to the director every year at around Christmas time, so that means that there is astronomical amounts of setup and tear down time required. I completed 26 hours worth of volunteer time over the break, which consisted of packing up lights and dismantling displays such as a giant 5:1 scale model of a reindeer and sleigh (I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of it, it looked very cool). One thing that caught my attention during this time was when I was talking to another one of the volunteers who was put in charge of gathering workers each year. He told me that each year it is getting harder and harder to find volunteers to help with the event, and that the possibility of the event even happening next year was in question. I thought that was pretty disappointing, considering the event raises a lot of money for a local North Brevard charity, Hope for North Brevard. I would highly consider volunteering again next year if the event is still held. It is for a great cause and is an awesome event to attend with family!

Total for this semester: 26 hours

Lights of Hope

Over Thanksgiving break, I was given the opportunity to help setup for an annual event for my hometown community called Lights of Hope, which is an outdoor Christmas festival complete with light displays, hay rides, mazes, arts and crafts, and many more activities. I was able to help setup lights (and will be helping tear down after Christmas) and other displays at a local park with my older brother for 2 days, or 14 hours total. I have previously helped set up for this event in my high school days and it was always extremely rewarding to see the finished product after everything was finished. This event is extremely unique and it allows for people around the area to come to a safe and family-friendly environment during the holiday season.

            I had planned to acquire more hours through the habitat for humanity, but sadly the weather did not agree with my available date in November. When I go home again for Christmas break, I have agreed to help work at the event in the days leading up before Christmas as well as help tear down the event and take down all of the lights. This will total to greater than 24 hours as each of the tear down days (2) are scheduled to be 6 hours each.

October Blog post

One of the main reasons I have chose this particular Master's program was because of the emphasis that was put on community service. I have a long history with community service type tasks and I plan to make it a lifelong pledge to serve the community, wherever that may end up being. I have yet to have time to complete any community service hours due to personal reasons, but I have signed up with habitat for humanity to work on construction projects within the coming month.

            This program has already started to teach me valuable lessons that I did not learn during my time in undergrad. If I am being completely honest, I was unmotivated during my time in undergrad. The worst part was that I kept succeeding and “getting by” just by using my natural problem solving abilities. I never had a wakeup call or moment that caused me to change my study habits. I have quickly realized early on in this program that in order to succeed, I must commit to the work and repeatedly review the material in order to be successful. One of the reasons that I have adopted this mentality is because I can finally see a purpose behind it all. I never used to be interested in a topic that I was studying because I never allowed myself to put it into context. Recently, I have had a different mindset that has been a motivation to learn the material as well as understand how that information might be useful to me in my future career path. I look forward to learning the future material as well as applying this material years later during my career.