Jeremy Chu’s initial experience with the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry occurred a decade before he became an SOD student. While still in middle school in Vestavia Hills, Chu received his first filling from a D3 student who also happened to be his sister.
“I was so nervous,” Chu recalls about having his sister Jessie, a 2016 SOD graduate, work on his teeth. “I thought, ‘Why does she have to practice on me?’ But it went well. She did a great job. That filling is still there all these years later. It just shows that D3s at UAB do good work.”
It is Chu who is now that D3 student, working on fillings and learning as much as he can about general dentistry. And he does not hesitate to give credit to his sister – who currently is in practice herself – for paving the path leading to his own journey into the profession.
“I was pretty close to my sister growing up, so I got exposed to dentistry at an early age,” Chu says. “I have a real-life example that UAB does a great job in teaching their students. That gives me motivation.”
Having the opportunity to shadow his sister convinced Chu that dentistry would be a good career choice for him as well. He says he likes the combination that dentistry provides of working with his hands while also maintaining personal interactions with patients.
“I’m a very social person, and in this career you are dealing with people constantly,” Chu says. “I really like that aspect of dentistry. I saw how my sister would bring a smile to people’s faces. I was intrigued by that.
“Also, I was into robotics and engineering in middle school. I like building and crafting things. I saw that dentistry is more hands-on, like robotics. There is an element of art to it, and you get to apply that directly to a patient. That combination is something that really drew me in.”
Chu received an undergrad degree in biology from UAB, then rolled directly into the D.M.D. program. Now, instead of being around his sister on a regular basis, Chu says he has discovered a similar sort of “family” atmosphere among his fellow D3 classmates.
“All the students in our class help each other. It feels more like a family,” Chu says. “Having a community of your classmates support you like that really makes a difference.”
Though he doesn’t have a younger sibling to work on, Chu says he has received plenty of training through the substantial amount of clinic hours he receives as a dental student.
“We get a lot of clinical experience here, especially with underserved populations,” Chu says. “We sometimes have people come here from two hours away. It’s nice to be able to help those people who really need it.”
“I enjoy having that interaction between provider and patient. We’re able to do something for the patient to help them and make them happy. That’s one of the things I really like about dentistry.”