If you are in dental school, you know how difficult it can be. In order to make dental school a little easier, there are a few popular apps you’ll want to take advantage of that will help you to study more effectively and learn about dentistry quickly and efficiently.
Below are some of the best apps for dental students:
Dental Anatomy Mastery
Dental Anatomy Mastery is an extremely effective study guide that helps dental students to learn and practice. This app teaches you about tooth morphology and occlusion, and it comes with over 400 dental anatomy questions that you can answer to quiz yourself. The app is currently sitting at 4.8/5 stars with 62 reviews on the Google Play store, making it a very trusted app.
Pomodoro Timer
It can be extremely easy to slack off during studying. There are all kinds of distractions that can pop up and even checking a Facebook notification can send you spiraling down a rabbit hole. Before you know it, it’s been an hour and you haven’t studied at all! That’s where the Pomodoro Timer comes into play…
The Pomodoro Timer isn’t a specific app, but there are a lot of apps that essentially serve as a Pomodoro Timer. Basically, a Pomodoro timer simply creates multiple sprints of a specific amount of time (generally 25 minutes or so), with a few short breaks (around 5 minutes) between and eventually a longer break (around 15 minutes). During the sprints, you simply focus on studying until the timer goes off. Then, you relax until the next timer goes off and you start the process over again. You’d be surprised how effective it can be to have a timer that lets you know when it’s study time and when it’s time to check your phone.
Udemy
Udemy is an amazing tool for learning about pretty much any topic—including dentistry. There are lots of dentistry courses available to purchase on Udemy on topics that include crown placement, extractions, implant dentistry, teeth whitening, and even classes specifically aimed at dental students! The courses on Udemy are extremely affordable, with many of their dentistry courses being under $20.
While these courses won’t replace dental school, they can give you an extra edge and provide you with some additional information that will make passing dental school and starting your career in dentistry that much easier.
Dental 3D Illustrations
This app is exactly what it sounds like—it provides 3D dental illustrations. With that said the illustrations are very in-depth and allow you to better visualize various teeth, areas of the mouth, and even procedures like implantation, surgery, orthodontics, and more. This study tool allows you to visualize a ton of different procedures and dental anatomy in the same place. It currently has a 4.4/5 star rating on the Google Play store with over 1,000 reviews.
YouTube
YouTube is a powerful learning tool, although many people don’t even consider it. There are so many channels on YouTube that are devoted to dentistry and quite a few of them are specifically aimed at dental students. These aren’t just filler channels, either. Many of these channels provide detailed information on procedures, along with actual videos of the procedure being performed.
There are plenty of channels that are run by real dentists and instructors that you can check out and learn from. This visual aid breaks up the monotony of reading textbooks and allows you to actually see what you are learning about in real-time.
Tips for Dental School
Along with the use of these fantastic apps, there are a lot of things you can do to make your time in dental school that much easier. Below are a few quick tips for dental school:
Put Together a Study Schedule
Along with your Pomodoro timer, you need to have a study schedule in place to make sure you are maximizing your studying. Studying should be added to your calendar and should be an ongoing event. By putting together a study schedule, you can work your social activities around your studying instead of the opposite. Then, you can use your Pomodoro clock app while studying to ensure you focus on the task at hand. You’ll create a routine, and you’ll begin to train your brain to get into study mode when your scheduled study time arrives.
Make Time for Fun Activities
Along with scheduling time for study, you will also want to schedule time to have some fun! Many high-achieving students will focus all of their efforts on studying and will neglect everything else. Then, all of a sudden, they hit a wall and become burnt out.
You need time to unwind, relax, and socialize. It’s an important part of not only student life but life in general! Go out with friends for a bite to eat, join a club…do whatever works best for you. Just make sure you have time that isn’t devoted to school.
Look for Learning Opportunities
There are a lot of opportunities to learn more (outside of your regular studies). As was discussed above, there are apps like Udemy and YouTube that allow you to learn more about the field of dentistry. You may learn something that either isn’t in your curriculum or isn’t highlighted in detail.
If there are opportunities to intern or shadow at a dental office, jump on them! The more you can learn before you graduate, the better.
Hire a Tutor
Not everyone is great at traditional studying, and that’s okay. We all have our unique ways of learning. In order to learn more efficiently (and stay on task), consider hiring a tutor. The right tutor will be able to identify your weaknesses and will help you to create a study schedule and method that is effective for you.
By using these apps and putting the tips above into practice, you’ll graduate from dental school in no time!
