Switching from Medicine to Dentistry in Italy: Is It Possible?

Yes, switching is possible in principle, but it isn't automatic - it runs through your specific university's internal transfer policy, seat availability in the year group you'd join, and how much of your completed coursework the receiving course agrees to count.

This isn't a hypothetical question. Every year, some students who end up in one of the two IMAT-linked degrees, sometimes by preference and sometimes by whichever seat their score actually cleared, spend their first year or two wondering whether the other course would have suited them better. It's a fair thing to wonder, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a vague one.

Why this comes up more than people expect

IMAT applicants rank both Medicine and Dentistry through the same admissions round, and plenty of candidates end up placed by score rather than by a clear first choice between the two. Once classes actually start, some students notice the day-to-day of one field pulls at them more than the other. That gap between where you landed and what genuinely interests you is exactly where this question comes from, and it's more common than people admit out loud.

The short answer

Switching does happen, and it isn't forbidden, but it isn't a simple internal form either. It runs through each university's own internal transfer and course-change policy, seat availability in the course and year group you'd be joining, and how much of what you've already completed the receiving course is willing to formally count toward its own requirements. None of that is standardized across universities, and none of it is something we can responsibly generalize from outside your specific case.

What tends to affect whether it's realistic

Whether there's an open seat in the year group you'd be joining, since Dentistry cohorts tend to run smaller than Medicine cohorts at most Italian universities. How much overlap your completed exams have with the receiving course's own curriculum, since the two share early pre-clinical coursework but diverge more the further along you are. And your own university's specific internal policy on course changes, which genuinely varies and shouldn't be assumed from what you've heard about a different university.

Why we're not giving you specific steps

This is exactly the kind of process where the real mechanics differ by university and by individual case, and acting on a generic online answer, including this one, risks costing you a real amount of time if it turns out not to apply to your situation. The accurate first step is asking your own university's student secretariat directly what an internal course change would require for you specifically, ideally before you've built a whole extra year around either assumption.

Switching is possible in principle, and genuinely specific in practice. The two universities and courses involved, not a general guide, are the actual source of truth on what it would take, and what's worth confirming before you assume anything either way.