Dear Orthodontics: It’s Not You, It’s Me (Just Kidding, It’s Definitely You)

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an orthodontist.

I knew I wanted to study something in the medical field, but medicine felt like a bit too much. Dentistry, on the other hand, felt like the perfect middle ground — still rooted in medicine, but more focused. (Which is funny, because let’s be real: dentistry is basically medicine. Everything is connected, and we still studied all the medical courses in uni.) 

But orthodontics? That’s always been it for me. That was the dream. Maybe it started when I got braces myself — I found the entire process fascinating. But ever since, I had tunnel vision. The only reason I even chose to study dentistry in the first place was because it’s a prerequisite to becoming an orthodontist.

So, tell me why, just two weeks into my orthodontic posting, I was spiraling into a full-blown existential crisis.

I was googling “non-clinical dental careers” like my life depended on it, convinced I’d made a mistake somewhere along the way.

From day one, I was thrown into the thick of it — changing wires, switching elastics, cementing molar bands, clerking patients, standing for hours on end while assisting with a set-up. Over and over. Day in, day out. It was nonstop. And not in a good way.

The unit was a factory:

• Monday: 

Wire changes on patients back-to-back, patient's begrudgingly admitting they broke multiple brackets, my soul exiting my body by patient #12

• Tuesday: 

Braces Installation Prep (a.k.a. molar band selection and cementation marathon and fingers permanently sticky from glass ionomer). Discovering new muscles in my hands that only ache during 6-hour bonding sessions

• Wednesday: 

Clerking the 15th Class II div 1 case of the morning, Consultant review day, taking notes like my life depended on it while secretly dissociating

• Thursday:

Wire changes again (because time is a flat circle), questioning all life choices by 11AM

• Friday:

Cephalometric tracing (pretending I could distinguish between a 31° and 32° SNA angle without squinting), weekly presentations (proving that 3 studies + Canva templates = an entire term's worth of presentations) and finally celebrating survival and then immediately switching my brain to ‘off-duty’ mode for 48 sacred hours.

I kept thinking to myself… This is it?
Where’s the fun? Where’s the spark? Where’s the part that made me fall in love with this in the first place?

In university, I loved studying ortho. Everything made sense — the etiology of malocclusion, the treatment planning, the biomechanics. I even didn't mind wire bending. I was excited, invested, and ready for more. 

But now, being in the thick of it, it just felt... wrong. Like I had romanticized it in my head for years, only to meet the real thing and feel nothing but disillusionment. It felt repetitive. Draining. Like my enthusiasm was slowly being eroded by routine. Burnout kicked in fast.

It wasn’t until I spoke with a friend that I started to feel a little more grounded. She reminded me that most jobs — clinical or not — are repetitive. Whether it’s ortho or another specialty or a completely different path, you’ll still have a routine. You’ll still see similar cases every day and have to make peace with the monotony. It’s just the reality of full-time work. You pick your challenges.

She encouraged me to explore other aspects of the career, — courses, short trainings, anything that could help break the monotony and add some variety. Something to keep it fresh. And slowly, it started to help. I remembered why I was so passionate about orthodontics in the first place. Just because the work felt dull at times didn’t mean the career was wrong for me.

Another friend told me to take it slow. To get experience in private practice before deciding if I really wanted to pivot. And that maybe, in a different environment, it could feel completely different.

Advice like that reminded me just how important it is to surround yourself with people who get it, who listen without judgment, and who help you come back to yourself when your mind is doing too much.

I really appreciated each and every one of them who offered support — it truly helped. It stopped my mind from spiraling, and it grounded me when I was ready to toss my dream out the window.

So very slowly, the days went by. I got used to the routine — or maybe I just stopped fighting it. I had friends who made the hours bearable, people to share snacks with, complain about patients to, and reenact the wildest clinic moments like we were in a sitcom. The tasks became second nature, my people skills leveled up (against my will), and I even stopped flinching every time someone said, “just one more patient.” Somehow, I adjusted to the chaos — and dare I say, got good at it.

And by the end of that posting — which also happened to be the end of my house job — I realized how much had changed. I wasn’t the same person who walked into Diagnosis on day one, nervous and unsure. I’d been through surgical chaos, emotional burnout, personal doubts, and physical exhaustion — but I made it through. Maybe even stronger. Definitely more self-aware. 

I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m okay with that. Because if house job taught me anything, it’s that you’ll probably never feel ready — but somehow, you do the thing anyway. And that gives me hope. 

I’m hopeful — because if I’ve made it through all this, then whatever comes next (hopefully somewhere a little cooler, calmer, and better stocked), I’ll figure it out too.