So You’ve Decided to Specialise? – IC056

How do we decide whether speciality training is right for us? Is the best time to specialise straight after Dental School? Or should we gain some experience in practice first? Dr Beant Thandi joins us today to share his journey into specialising and shares some key experiences that will surely help guide you along the way. We discuss the different specialities within Dentistry as well as what personality types may suit them. This episode will really help you understand what it takes to specialise and how to get there. https://youtu.be/f8ZM8EkjSQY Watch IC056 on Youtube Key Takeaways:- Beant is starting his specialization in periodontics.- His journey began during COVID, leading to a desire to specialize.- Proactive learning and mentorship played a crucial role in hisdevelopment.- Financial planning is essential when considering specialization.- Choosing a specialty should align with personal interests and strengths.- Periodontics offers a breadth of practice that appeals to Beant.- The importance of community support in dental education cannot be overstated.- Reflection and documentation of cases can enhance learning and confidence.- Understanding the financial implications of specialization is vital.- It's important to stay grounded and not rush into specialization.  Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below! Highlights of this Episode:00:00 Teaser02:38 Intro to Dr Beant Thandi04:03 Dental Journey06:10 What Influenced You?12:56 Too Young to Specialise17:50 Judgement by Jaz21:00 Never too Young26:05 Cost of Specialising28:23 Why not the USA?31:30 Roasting Prostho34:45 Roasting Endo37:42 Roasting Ortho39:49 Roasting Oral Surgery45:00 Shoutout to Lucy45:30 Final Thoughts47:28 End Outro If you liked this episode, check out a classic: Should You Specialise? PDP006 This episode is not eligible for CPD/CE points, but never fear, there are hundreds of hours of CPD waiting for you on the Ultimate Education Plan, including Premium clinical workthroughs and Masterclasses. Click below for full episode transcript: Teaser: But one thing I learned from a nurse when I was doing a DCT job was people all progress at different rates. It should be competency based, not necessarily time based things. People learn at different rates. And this was a max fax nurse who's obviously seen regists for decades, where I'm sure like, the junior regists are better than the senior regists. Just because they soak it up more. [Jaz]The whole pros element, right? Multiple crowns, four rehabs, lots of general dentist do four rehabs, lots of general dentists do all on fours, that kind of stuff. So, nowadays it's like blurred lines between, okay, what do they actually need a Prosth for? However, prosth, I think they're very employable. However, lots of people who do an MClinDent Prosth end up being general dentist. We're just like really good general dentists in practice and still doing checkups and stuff. I have seen that. [Beant]The fees are 37 and a half thousand pounds a year and they're subjects- [Jaz]For a home student. [Beant]This is for a home student. I'm a home student.   [Jaz]What? How much is it for an international student? [Beant]60, 000 pounds. Jaz's Introduction:I think every dentist in the world at one stage of their career has thought about specializing. And most of us never do, right? About 90% in UK anyway are general dentists or at least non specialists. Only 7% actually enter specialist fields of dentistry like perio, prostho, endo, oral surgery, you name it. How do we decide whether specialty training is for you? There are huge sacrifices one must make both in terms of time and finances. And how can you be sure that you really want to niche and narrow your scope of practice into that one field that you might choose? Is the best time to specialize like straight after dental school? Or is it good to gain a few years experience or many years of experience before you consider specializing? Hello, Protruserati, I'm Jaz Gulati and welcome back to your favorite on the podcast. I've got Dr. Beant Thandi today who's literally been accepted just now into Perio specialist training. We recorded this a few months ago. So it probably just started his specialist training, but he's young. He's a new grad and he's deciding to specialize early on. He decided that Perio is his calling and be nice to tap into his mindset. Why is he thinking of specializing in Perio? Why not any other specialty? Why not do some more years in general dentistry? Why not do lots of courses in Perio and be good at Perio, but not necessarily be a specialist. How's he going to finance this? Nowadays, things are getting so expensive. And that includes the fees for specialist training. Beant is one of our community members on the app. So it's a great pleasure to host him. Hope you enjoy this episode. Covers so many themes about specializing. Like we've all thought of these questions before. And you know what? I don't think there's any right or wrong answers. But I know for a fact, this will help you. If you're kind of stuck and you're thinking, is specialist training for me? This is going to help to give you some direction. Catch you in the outro. Main Episode:Dr. Beant Thandi, you're about to specialize. Super exciting time. It is so great to have you, to catch you at this stage of someone's career, because we've had specialists on before. We've had young specialists on before, experienced specialists. We've had people thinking about specializing, but you're literally in that kind of limbo period where You're literally about to start specializing in Perio. So tell us my friend about your journey so far. And when do you actually start your program? [Beant]Yeah, sure. So, well, thanks for having me on. So we've got long story and short story. So to answer the first bit, which people want to know is I'm starting next Monday. I'm going to the Eastman Dental Hospital, do their three year MClinDent course, hopefully come out a specialist, that's the plan. It will be, yeah. It'll be a full time course. So I've had a bit of a read of the brochure. It's going to be like five days a week, pretty intense kind of thing. So pretty much like a job going straight into it. So excited, nervous. I think it's a happy, nervous, excited. I think I don't know quite what to expect, but I'm like looking forward. [Jaz]And so tell us, give us a flavor of what got you to this point. So tell us about your dental school training, like your very early stage in your career. And so people decide to specialize at various times. Like, for example, when I look at someone like, Reena Wadia, a well known perio specialist, who's been on the podcast before. A bit like you quite early jumped on and she's doing great things. Equally, I've seen clinicians who've been in the game for 11, 15 years, then they want to specialize and they're also equally doing wonderful things. So tell us about your journey so far. [Beant]Yeah, sure. So my journey all started with cOVID actually. So, when I was an undergrad, it was middle of third year. So we just started seeing patients literally in the January, February started getting going. Treatment plans were done. We're actually starting to do fillings. It's getting excited and then bang COVID hits and we're all sort of shelved. And I remember during that period we all went online with everything and it was all good. We're still learning. They got us back. So I trained at Birmingham. They got us back into clinics quite quickly, actually like credit to them. And what happened was it got to a phase where we would go to clinics, go to university, then we'd come home and that was it. Couldn't do anything else. Couldn't see anyone. There's only so many video games and Netflix series you can really watch. So just got quite bored. It's a bit odd, but it sounds really weird saying this, but for me, I felt dissatisfied and I couldn't explain it. I didn't know what it was because I was telling myself and I know it's still the truth. I'm going to be a dentist and that's absolutely amazing. That's fantastic. I'm really lucky to be on the course, like what's going on kind of thing. And then I was quite literally sat in bed at night going to sleep. And I was like, I never thought about specializing, literally a thought in my head. And I go, hmm. It was literally like a moment like that, like went to sleep anyways, carried on. [Jaz]What year were you in? Was this like fourth year, fifth year? [Beant]So this is the tail end of third year. So start of fourth year, start of BDS four. And at this point we then, so with this in my mind, it's like, okay, I'm going to just keep my eye out for things. I wasn't too like diehard about anything. I was like, okay, well I'm in a dental hospital. I'm being taught by a load of specialists. Who else better to kind of get that insight from? And so, we were going through a block during, at the time, where we do specialty modules. So we had pros, specialties, perio, endo, oral surgery, oral med, Paeds, Ortho, all sort of the usual blocks. And I kind of just paid a, I know it sounds silly, a bit more attention to them as could I see myself doing this? Yes? No? And obviously I won't put down any other specialties, but there were some which I was like, yeah, no, that's not for me. I respect what they do, but I couldn't see myself doing that. [Jaz]And here's an interesting question. I have this big belief from childhood that your teachers, the character they are in your role models that you have, teachers growing up will inspire you to go down a certain route. So for example, if you have a really good history teacher and you're like in eighth grade, you may well end up doing history at uni. Because of that eighth grade teacher was just amazing. And so I've had similar moments that I wanted to,