CAAPID Personal Statement Examples

Aspiring dental professional in clinical setting, reflecting dedication and focus essential for a CAAPID application personal statement.

A dentist trained in India, observing and volunteering in dental clinics have been my most satisfying moments so far here in America. I hope to make the USA my permanent home or at least base of operations. I have been visiting the United States for extended periods since 2010, learning as much as possible about how dentistry is practiced here. I have now been living in the US for an entire year, hoping and preparing to be selected for an Advanced Placement program for international dentist. I have completed two extensive dental observerships, one in Massachusetts for two months and the other in Florida for three months, learning all I could, absorbing even the smallest of details of how dentistry functions in America.

The most vital aspect of my application to your Advanced Placement DDS/DMD Program is the fact that I have five years of full-time experience as a dental surgeon, most recently performing a good many implants and becoming highly accomplished in this area of our field. I am convinced that this will help me to excel in your program. I also have an extensive record of accomplishment as a volunteer in both India and America.

Foreign dentist observing a procedure during a shadowing experience in the USA, gaining insights into American dental practices.

I seek to continue to advance in the practice of my profession, thinking of myself as a global dentist and a citizen of the world who finds his greatest joy helping the globally underserved. I look forward to lifetime advancement in my awareness of the plight of the underserved, especially in the Developing World and, most notably, India. In this way, I will prepare myself for making my maximum contribution as a human being and a dentist in the future, dedicated to lifelong learning and creative innovation. While I worked full-time in India as a dental surgeon from July of 2009 through March of 2014, in addition to the United States, I have also visited England, Canada, and Thailand and learned as much as I could about dentistry in each location.

I currently devote many hours each week to the Cornerstones Hypothermia Prevention Shelter, near where I reside in Fairfax Country Virginia. I cook and serve meals and raise funds for the purchase of thermal garments. Finding the most intense joy in cooking and serving meals to the homeless and working to keep them warm during brutal winters has dramatically reinforced my sense of personal mission and service to the underserved, and I find myself more and more driven to also help them as a dentist, also caring for their oral health. I look forward to deepening my engagement with the homeless and their oral health care needs as a student in your program.

An aspiring dentist engaged in hands-on training for the CAAPID program, practicing crucial examination techniques.

Raised in a family of medical and healthcare professionals, I have always been passionately engaged with medical and scientific issues. I chose to become a dentist rather than a physician primarily because of my profound respect for the oral health needs that I saw around me growing up in India. Dental distress and disease struck me as especially acute, alongside issues of social justice and human charity. While in dental school, I focused my attention early on the fate of millions of my fellow citizens, especially older ones, who have never been to a dentist.  Many of these patients not only had no access to dental care, but they also had high rates of tobacco use, accompanied by precancerous lesions in their mouths that made it difficult to chew and swallow. I was elected General Secretary of the student body and used my position to organize camps for the needy, providing many with dentures. I worked especially hard to distinguish myself in the Department of Prosthodontics where I organized the dental clinics and wrote extensively to journals and newspapers about dental health to further my commitment to outreach. I continue to be primarily motivated by a sense of social responsibility, and this gives me hope that I might be interviewed for entrance into a doctoral program.

After graduating from dental school, I assisted oral and maxillofacial surgeons in outpatient procedures and surgeries at ____ Medical Hospital in ____, Punjab. I soon found myself organizing blood donation and dental check-up camps in association with numerous organizations in India. I was most grateful for the joy of so many happy patients who had not received dental care in many years, if at all, finally smiling, eating, laughing, and talking with ease once again.  Organizing and participating in camps to bring free dentures to the impoverished was one of my cornerstone responsibilities and something that we thought of as a most important social obligation.  Encouraged by my peers and college faculty, I came to America. I began assisting Dr. ____ in the USA and immediately fell in love with the advanced, state of the art, dental practice, gaining hands-on experience in this new land, and a chance to participate in research as well. 

Shortly before arriving in America, II presented a research paper on periodontal surgery techniques and indications at the ____ Institute of Dental Sciences and Hospital, one of several such presentations that I made both before and after completing dental school.  I am currently investigating the epidemiology of periodontal diseases and the use of mass media in periodontal public education.  I have presented lectures on the prevention of caries, brushing and flossing, and dental care for infants and children during my tenure with ____ Medical Hospital. My service in India as an oral surgeon provided me with a platform for making important contributions to pain control and preventive dentistry education.

Your program will advance my ability as a dentist to a whole new level and expand my capacity as a scientific investigator as well.

Thank you for considering my application.

CAAPID Personal Statement Examples