Today I wanted to share a blog post from Dr. Meenakshi Bharthi. She is a foreign trained dentist from India, earned her DDS from New York University Advanced Standing Program, currently practicing in Indiana.
She shares her genuine and witty writings about her experience in the States as a international dentist on Dentistry United. Being an internationally-trained dentist myself, I could deeply relate to and appreciate her honesty – as a dentist, it is not always easy to outwardly admit when things are challenging, I’m yet to find someone who writes about it as beautifully as her.
Some of her posts are about her life before she started NYU; taking the boards, writing the personal statement, working on speaking English the ‘American-way’, and more. There are also posts about her experiences and thoughts she had while studying in NYU Advanced Standing Program and working after graduating.
Coming out of dental school from India (before she practiced in the United States), she was assertive that she could handle any situation that came her way. Then she ran into a unique case.
Things were going as expected for the first few days and then one evening, there walks into the practice a medically compromised patient in pain. He had oral cancer and undergone surgery and chemotherapy and lost apart of his tongue. He needed a few restorations and an extraction. I was just standing in there for a few seconds and did not know how to proceed.
Dentistry can lead to complex and unique cases among patients. Dr. Bharthi explains how she was at a loss of words, and felt unsure how help out her new patient. Feeling overwhelmed she spoke with her senior who calmly explained how the patient can be treated. He had been studying a lot even after finishing dental school.
Dr. Bharthi now practices dentistry in the United States. She felt a renewed sense of confidence in her dentistry abilities because of the training she received from NYU Advanced Standing Program of different situations that could transpire.
I moved from my country to the US. I was at school again and I learnt a whole new way of working with different patients. We had complex scenarios presented to us and the cases discussed and analyzed. We were made self sufficient to practice dentistry after school here in the US. I was out to practice again. But this time, I was more confident and could handle situations more clearly.
Her articles will be a good inspiration for when you need a little break or inspiration. It’s a hard journey, but soon you will look back and smile when you realize how far you’ve come. Until then, however, let’s buckle down and work, but don’t forget to keep your spirits high!
The full list of articles she’s written can be found here.
Leave A Comment