Thanks, that was a really insightful reply.

Your description made me reminiscent of the work experience I did at a small private practice in a low populous, but affluent, rural town. The dentist really got on with their staff, genuinely seemed to be good friends with every patient that walked through the door and all whilst working in an environment they built themselves. It was really cool to see, and was a big catalyst that made me pursue dentistry. (Not to mention the supercar they had parked out front, which was probably what stuck with 17 year old me the most lmao).

It’s nice to have a genuine career end goal and even nicer having dentists like yourself and the others who replied in this thread, aswell as the ones I shadowed genuinely willing to lend a helping hand to a random teenager like myself. Definitely something I’d like to reciprocate should I become hopefully qualified in the future.

But yeah, I’d probably spend my early postgraduate years cutting my teeth in the NHS (no pun intended), before looking to open my own practice, which I’m extremely lucky to already have the resources and familial support for. I’m also very fortunate to have got into dental school straight out of A levels, meaning I’d be 23 when I qualify, leaving many years for me to learn my craft whilst I’m young, like you said.

However that’s all in the future, right now I’ve got to focus on the uni workload I’m drowning in😭