Dentistry has been a lucrative career for a long time and hence has been a career choice of many students aspiring to choose a stream that is around medicine. In India there are umpteen colleges that offer bachelors, masters and doctorate courses in dentistry.
But, many students around the time the complete BDS realize that they aren’t sure of what they want to do after BDS or aren’t very keen on going ahead with clinical dental practice. So, here are a list of career alternatives after BDS that could help you out of these horns of the dilemma.
If you have the resources to acquire higher education and the interest to pursue, then going for a MDS or a doctorate program is definitely a good alternative. Having a masters or a doctorate in your kitty will certainly place you at a higher level than a bachelors degree holder. It will also open doors to career alternatives, that of becoming a lecturer or a dental research associate.
If you are willing to work for a firm rather than pursuing your own practice, you may apply in hospitals and areas like defense, where they do recruit dentists through short service commission for a definite period that is extendable. Another lucrative but difficult alternative is choosing to appear for civil service examinations. These exams mostly focus on general knowledge and cracking these ones can make you an IAS/ IPS/ IFS, offering a sky rocketing career in the Indian government. Even railways and the state government does come out with recruitment in dentistry from time to time.
For students having the desire to move outside India for better opportunities, Gulf, UK, Canada as well as the USA are some destinations that offer a good scope. You can either opt for higher education here or a work permit. There might be few prerequisites though associated with it and you would need to figure them out before going ahead.
In case you realize at the end of doing BDS that dentistry is not your cup of tea, then you always have an option for MBA in the area of your interest. Alternatively, you may go for masters in mass communication or advertising or any other as well. This might mean saying a good bye to dentistry mostly but could just open the relevant door to your career dreams.
Well, they say if one door closes, may others open and that there’s always a plan B to Z available if plan A fails. So, if you are in a dilemma about your career direction after BDS, take out some to to ponder upon your own interests and passions if any and you’ll certainly find a way ahead.
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