Interviews

We were told to expect to pay around $10,000 between applications fees and interviews.  This will vary based on how many programs you apply to and interview at, how far you have to travel as well as if you have any connections for flights or hotels (friends to stay with, free flights etc) during the interview process, but we personally found it to be fairly accurate.

One thing you can do to help your husband is to find hotels (or friends or family to stay with) and flights.  Some schools are supportive of their dental students pursuing specailties and will have no problem with them missing clinic or class time, but our school wasn't, so we had to be very careful about when we scheduled his flights.

Because my husband had so many interviews close together he was gone for 2 weeks straight.  Traveling through so many time zones so close together was rough on him.  Not to mention it was rough on our little boy having dad leave for a few days, be home for a few days only to leave again (our little boy is also extremely attached to his dad) so that is what was best for us.  Again, something you have to prepare yourself for.

Ask your husband to inform you about what each of the programs are like after he interviews there.  It will help you decide together which program is best for your family.  Your husband will be looking for different things than you.  He will want to know what the program focus is, how many residents they take, the personalities of residents and attendings, and how many hospitals the program services (which should matter to you too because the more travel your husband has the less time he is at home).  Those things should be important to you too because it will determine how happy your husband is in his residency.  The things you might be more interested in are things like: cost of living, how close you can live to his program (and thus how long of a commute it will be), schools, friends and family that live nearby, things to do nearby (parks, museums etc.) and the safety of the areas.  Ask your husband to try to pay attention to these things if they come up.  You might want to ask him to make connections with residents there too.  If there are any residents with wives that are willing to speak with you, it will give you a better idea of what that program will be like. 

The most important advice I received about this step of the process is:
DON'T GET ATTACHED TO ANY PROGRAMS

It's hard to do because you want to be informed so you can make a good decision about ranking the programs, but you don't have any control over where you go, so you don't want to be disappointed when you don't get into your favorite program. 

Just keep in mind all the pros and cons so, if you do match, you can refer to the pros list of the programs your husband gets into and start getting excited about your new home.

Applications

The application process will probably not be like anything you've done.

It will be a great help to your husband if you are able to assist him with the application process.  It is long, and complicated and, to be frank, a big pain.

Every program requires different information and sometimes in different forms.  There is conflicting information between their program website and the PASS site.  What we did was contact the specified person in each program we were applying to and verified what information they wanted (after comparing the two sources).  There was an OMFS wife that helped her husband apply the year before we did and put together a great spreadsheet to keep track of everything they had done through the application process.  She was kind enough to share the format with me (and YOU).  You can find it here.

I'm not sure what everyone else's experience was, but we applied to about 50 programs.  Being able to write down what we had to do for which program and what they required was so helpful. 

Different programs have different deadlines as well.  When we applied I think the soonest deadline was the beginning of September.  It is a long process to gather all the information, so you probably need to start around May or June.



Notes about spreadsheets:
Please copy and past the spreadsheet into your own document.  You will definitely need to make adjustments based on where you decide to apply.

It is not complete.  Just something to start with.  I've only put in the information for 4 year programs (and only some of them) because we only applied to 4 year programs. 

Programs will change from year to year so you'll have to verify information but I found it easy to adjust an existing document than to start from scratch. 

There are two spreadsheets when you follow the link.  One is the programs contact information and the other is to keep track of the application information.

If you have any questions you're welcome to email:
oralsurgerywives@gmail.com