A young and resolute dental professional, Dr. Rucha Pandya is broadening her horizons in Dentistry by pursuing her MDS so that in the future she can open her own clinic and serve people.

Born and brought up in Ahmedabad, Rucha did her schooling in the city itself. She did her BDS at Pacific Dental College, Udaipur. Currently, she is pursuing her MDS in Periodontics at the same institute.

Rucha says that her journey from BDS to the first year of MDS has been a difficult one. Staying away from home to pursue her bachelors, and then juggling between theoretical classes and practical sessions entailed its own challenges. And in MDS, which lays more emphasis on practical learning by attending patients at the hospital, is also a bit challenging for her.

Rucha shares that she wanted to do MBBS but in the medical entrance examination, she couldn’t score that well and hence had to appear for the BDS entrance exam and she chose BDS. But she says that BDS subjects are more or less the same as MBBS though they focus more on dental aspects of the human body which makes her interested in the curricula.

After completing her BDS, she wanted to explore further in the field and appeared in the PG entrance examination. And after clearing it she took admission to MDS at the same college where she did her BDS at. She was more interested in dental implants and hence chose Periodontics and Implantology as her specialization in MDS.

As a child, Rucha considered her parents as her role model and wanted to be like them. But now she considers her Head of the Department at the institute as her role model.

After completing her post-graduation, Rucha aspires to open a clinic of her own in her hometown, Ahmedabad.

To aspiring students of Dentistry, her piece of advice is that Dentistry is not rocket science. You just need to be thorough with your subjects to clear the entrance test. Besides, she says that when you’re seeing patients your hand mobility should be very smooth as you’re operating on a conscious patient and you can’t afford to cause them any pain.

Rucha thinks that nobody is a born leader nor was she. Everyone learns leadership with time and experience. She believes in coordinating and working with and taking along everyone in the team and that’s her leadership style.