A Day In Their Scrubs
D1 Madeline Lynn is carrying on a generations-long legacy of dentistry. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather all attended the College of Dentistry.
Hometown: Dallas, Texas. I was born and raised here.
What did you do before dental school? I applied to dental school my senior year of college, but I didn’t get in. I didn’t really know if it was something I truly wanted for myself. Initially I thought maybe it’s a sign it’s not meant to be, so I took an aptitude test, and it told me health care or education. This led me to apply for Teach for America because I loved their mission. Once accepted I became a high school biology teacher!
Where did you teach? I was a high school ninth grade biology teacher for two years (2018-2020) at a charter school called Uplift Hampton in South Oak Cliff, Dallas. COVID hit in the middle of my second year. After my 2-year service commitment, I decided to apply for dental school again! While applying, I homeschooled two middle school boys for a family part time and dental assisted part time.
Why you decided to give dentistry another try: I started thinking about giving dentistry another shot the summer after my first year of teaching. I really enjoyed teaching, but there were a few things such as not having autonomy of your classroom and having to teach to a test that made me realize this was not the profession I saw myself in for the rest of my life. As I thought about next steps, I decided to reconsider applying to dental school and really analyzed if dentistry would fulfill me in ways teaching could not. I loved that you are able to work with your hands, while helping and serving patients daily. I also get excited about the prospect of being my own boss and owning a practice one day. Dentistry also offered more room for me to grow, as there is so much continuing education, and the opportunity to learn more never stops.
Family history: Three generations of my family were dentists and attended this school: my great-grandfather Dr. Roland Lynn – Class of 1926, my grandfather Dr. David Lynn, Sr. – Class of 1956, and my father Dr. D. Brock Lynn, Jr. – Class of 1980 as well as 1990 perio graduate.
I chose to go to TAMCOD because this legacy is hard to ignore, and being close to family was extremely important to me. I knew I wanted to stay in Texas and eventually practice here.
What was the process of getting into COD like? I retook my DAT, which I was able to do over the summer, took some post-bac classes at the University of Texas at Dallas, and highlighted the unique aspects of my application. I also shadowed a lot of dentists in the summer to ensure applying to dental school again and dentistry was the right career change.
Future plans: I would love to work as a general dentist with my father for a couple years. It would be an invaluable experience to learn from him and work alongside him. Whether I will go back and specialize is still to be determined, but I enjoy working with kids, so pediatric dentistry has always been interesting to me. I plan on incorporating service dentistry into my life in some aspect, as serving has always been important to me.
