I asked my wife to write down her thoughts about dental school, please enjoy.
When my husband first started dental school, I had many wives tell me that it was going to be hard the first year and then get lighter as the years went on. I have come to find out that this is mostly true. The first year was the hardest because there was gross anatomy. The second year was almost as hard in the sense that he had one to two tests each week.
It is hard having your husband come home from school and study the rest of the day and the entire weekend. I felt like I had to squeeze in every possible opportunity to spend time with him. It was the hardest during big test weeks.
What I can say is enjoy those moments that you do have with your spouse. We made it so that dinner time was for us and we tried to have a date night each week, granted there were no big impending tests the next week. We also left some fun time on Sundays, when he would try to make it a day of rest and recuperation.
I really felt like I was also going through the schooling with him sometimes. I would find time to be with him by helping quiz with flashwords. I took walks with him and helped him learn and memorize on those walks. I would stay up the nights before tests and read the material. I definitely had a larger vocabulary of the human anatomy after his first semester.
What helped me get through these years was to stay busy. I had a job during the day and at night I would support him by making dinner. I did take care of the house and our dog.
It is all worthwhile when he comes home with news of a good grade on a test, or when you can see that he is enjoying carving or working on people’s teeth.