On a Solid Footing

Adam Eljarrah was working as a medical scribe in the emergency department of a Hackensack hospital when the pandemic broke. He was testing the waters for going into medical school. But the world-altering event also altered his career plans.

“There were many poorer outcomes,” said Eljarrah, referring to the lives lost during the pandemic. “I wanted to be in a more positive health care setting.”

He started thinking about what he enjoyed at the hospital. He liked being able to make an immediate impact on patients’ lives. He also liked getting to know patients over time. Both of those pointed him to dentistry. Eljarrah is now a first-year student in Rutgers School of Dental Medicine’s (RSDM) DMD program.

In undergrad, Eljarrah studied psychology and began developing an interest in the health care field. Upon graduation, he worked at the New York Simulation Center which taught medicine through simulation. He also worked as a clinical research assistant at a different hospital.

As his interest grew, he wanted to dive deeper into biomedical sciences and enrolled in Rutgers’ master’s program in biomedical sciences. He was on the medical scholars track and got more involved in research, studying breast cancer. During the program, he became a scribe in Hackensack, where the pandemic pushed him to reevaluate his path and veered him to dentistry.

He, again, tried it out and volunteered at a dental organization that provided free care. “I was really struck by how many people were waiting overnight just to have one day of care,” he said. “It just showed the importance of dentistry.”

The next step was dental school, and RSDM’s comprehensive clinical requirements appealed to him. “There's no way around getting clinical experience, making clinical decisions other than just practicing [hands-on],” Eljarrah said. “Rutgers has extensive clinical requirements, and I want to practice in New Jersey, so it made sense to me to be a student here.”

So far, he has been enjoying the program. The curriculum, he found, reinforces dental concepts across different courses. Preclinic courses have been challenging him but seeing his own growth and improvement, he said, has been rewarding.

“The faculty are very passionate about what they teach. That's been infectious, and I feed off their enthusiasm,” said Eljarrah. “That to me says, I'm just in the right program.”