Is dentistry a stepping-stone or end in/and of itself to YOU?

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In your pursuance of dentistry, do you find yourself being driven by dentistry itself, or by the avenues that the are opened once a successful career in dentistry has been established?

For example:
- Did the allure humanitarianism encourage your decision so you could give aid to less fortunate in other countries?
- Did the allure of money encourage you to pursue your dream to retire young and open a coffee shop?

etc, etc...

What was the ultimate decider? Be honest, spill it!

Originally Posted by rulonhardy

In your pursuance of dentistry, do you find yourself being driven by dentistry itself, or by the avenues that the are opened once a successful career in dentistry has been established?

For example:
- Did the allure humanitarianism encourage your decision so you could give aid to less fortunate in other countries?
- Did the allure of money encourage you to pursue your dream to retire young and open a coffee shop?

etc, etc...

What was the ultimate decider? Be honest, spill it!

For me it is the allure of having a decent family life all while still being a successful contributor to the personal health of patients. I do plan on giving aid to others, (depending on how crazy the world gets).
Being able to work in a career that implements the sciences and hands on function, along with providing for a family is my number one reason.
And yes, this is all honest

Originally Posted by rulonhardy

In your pursuance of dentistry, do you find yourself being driven by dentistry itself, or by the avenues that the are opened once a successful career in dentistry has been established?

For example:
- Did the allure humanitarianism encourage your decision so you could give aid to less fortunate in other countries?
- Did the allure of money encourage you to pursue your dream to retire young and open a coffee shop?

etc, etc...

What was the ultimate decider? Be honest, spill it!

the 2nd one

autonomy as a practice owner is important to me.

I plan to invest in rentals along the way such that as I'm dialing down with dentistry the revenue from rental properties will match my dental income. Where I live you can get into a duplex for 200k and get 1500 per unit = 3k / rental. I see this trend continuing as renting is becoming more feasible to many instead of buying.

We have family friends with 5 rentals paid off as they're ~15yrs from retirement. Therefore, they're getting around 15k in cash flow per month and hold all the equity in their rentals. Not a bad place to be.

Stepping-stone for me. I plan on using dentistry to allow me to network with my community and propel myself to get elected to a board of education. I want to make education free and more accessible. The current education "system" is despicable.

Your number 2. But no coffee shop. Most likely part time day trading, or a science teacher/golf coach or just flat out retiring lol.

you caught me

the bank wouldn't approve me a loan for my coffee shop unless i had a DDS

Originally Posted by yellowishbluish

you caught me

the bank wouldn't approve me a loan for my coffee shop unless i had a DDS

lol replace coffee shop with bakery and dit-to.

opening a coffee shop would be nuts. So many big box stores occupy that space (star bucks, etc) that you would end up blowing all that hard earned money doing something that you already had an economic niche doing, dentistry, where the bar for entry is 8 years of education and a competitive academic record.

Why open a money pit like a coffee shop or bakery to compete with giants when you already have something proprietary like a dental practice?

I would say the second one. Not just money but the lifestyle of a dentist. I want to open a motocross track when I'm older. I know of very few people that race MX and are DR.s, my dad was a dentist and he practiced for 15 years and loved boxing and opened a gym.....crazy guy

Originally Posted by yellowishbluish

you caught me

the bank wouldn't approve me a loan for my coffee shop unless i had a DDS

Hahaha, that is fairly similar to my goal. Dentistry will allow me to save enough to own a car dealership.

Honestly dentistry is something that I would enjoy but I feel like an entrepreneur at heart, I love to buy and sell, right now I do a lot of buying/selling of electronics on ebay, I buy and sell in the stock market. However I need a skill to fall back on which is why I chose dentistry, (also the fact that I can open a business as a dentist) or I could work 3 days a week and still have time to pursue other business interests.

Originally Posted by rulonhardy

In your pursuance of dentistry, do you find yourself being driven by dentistry itself, or by the avenues that the are opened once a successful career in dentistry has been established?

For example:
- Did the allure humanitarianism encourage your decision so you could give aid to less fortunate in other countries?
- Did the allure of money encourage you to pursue your dream to retire young and open a coffee shop?

etc, etc...

What was the ultimate decider? Be honest, spill it!

Definitely a stepping stone. I am looking forward to when the time comes where my student loans are taken care of (for the most part) and I am working 3 days a week as a dentist. The other 4 days will be a mix of spending time with family, relaxing and of course investing it into new ideas for side jobs that can help increase my monthly income. Opening a gym would be on the upper tier of my ideas while opening a separate dental office to hire new graduates as associates would be somewhere in between the lower and upper tier. That's years from now though....