D3 Ruben Mikaelyan @ruben_m_90 - Dose of Dental Podcast #228 x Dr. Gallagher's Podcast

Top 5 Topics:

- Crushing the CBSE: The Ultimate High-Score Study Strategy

- How to Dominate Oral Surgery Residency Applications

- Anki vs Question Banks: The Brutal Truth About Scoring 260+ on Step 1 / CBSE

- Waking Up at 3:30AM & Still Crush Dental School + Full-Time Work

- Oral Surgery Mentorship Culture In Dental School That Creates Legends

Quotes & Wisdom:

“If I had to delete everything and boil it down to just the bare minimum, I would say yes, doing questions in a question bank. Nothing’s going to beat that.” — Ruben (highest-yield CBSE advice)

“Doing Anki increases your chances of [an insane score]. Not necessary, but I think increases your chances.” — Ruben (on going for top scores)

“It really is an arms race right now of resources … whoever’s utilizing the most diverse set of resources is going to essentially eventually find the resources that work best for them.” — Ruben (on modern studying)

“I would just encourage everyone to be open to mentoring the underclassmen and be genuine about it … check in on them every month and a half.” — Ruben (building mentorship culture)

“I would extern at the reach programs … There is a little strategy game to the externships.” — Brendan (smart externship strategy)

“You want to rank in terms of your interests, every time … Go with your gut feeling, your intuition overall.” — Brendan (match ranking wisdom)

“If you know that you wanna go into oral surgery, in my opinion, you can start studying for the CBSE whenever you want … Get excited. It’s going to be a long journey in front of you.” — Ruben (advice to pre-dents)

“Just start with some cookie cutter thing for your personal statement. Get some “word vomit” onto the pages early - It’s going to be a marathon to write your PS, not a sprint.” — Brendan (personal statement advice)

Questions:

(17:33): “What are the specific CBSE resources and how to study them, the strategy of the individual resources?”

(36:22): “What externships do you have planned?”

(42:05): “How would you recommend going about writing your personal statement?”

Now available on:

- Dr. Gallagher’s Podcast & YouTube Channel

- Dose of Dental Podcast #228

My watch in this episode = Tag Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 16 Chrono

- 4.2026

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