Hawk, can you describe your typical day and possibly those of general dentists (im assumng u're a specailist or comprehensive)? Please the more detail the better for anyone applying and has these specific questions. thanks
I'm actually a general dentist, I did the 1 year AEGD a couple years ago and have been in the Army about 3 years. My typical day consists of four 90 minute operative appointments and two 60 minute operative appointments. So in an 8 hour day I see 6 patients, we start at 0730 and end at 1630. Most of our patients have a lot of dental needs, so I try to get as much done at each appointment as possible. Sometimes it may be one very large restoration, or 3-5 small ones.
Usually one day a week I do "sick call and exams" which consists of treating emergency patients in the morning and annual exams all afternoon. The emergencies range from pulpectomies (thats where I get all the endo I do) and OS, to operative from lost/broken fillings or fractures from trauma.
I start endo residency this summer, so I try to do as much endo as I can, but probably only do 2-3 cases per month. My clinic has an endodontist to help mentor me and answer any questions I have, as well as two state of the art endo operatories. They have rotary motors, apex locators, microscopes, Obtura, and System B all built into the operatories. The endodontist normally uses one of the operatories, and I use the other when I have an endo patient. I usually book endo patients for 2 hours, which gives me enough time to do both endo and build up for an easy tooth, or just the endo for a tough tooth.
I was doing a pros case or two per month, but I have stopped prepping teeth since I won't be able to deliver the crowns that I would prep at this point. There are two prosthodontists in my clinic as well as a full service lab and lab tech, so if I ever had a question there was someone to turn to. We also have a periodontist in our clinic, and while I haven't done any perio sugeries since the AEGD, he is great to have handy for consults.
The pros and perio guys schedule their patients as they see fit, if a patient needs one, two, three or four hours, they schedule them so. The endodontist books every patient for two hours, except surgeries which he books for four hours.
The other general and comprehensive dentists are scheduled the same way I am. Most of the other general and comprehensive dentists do less pros and endo than I do, one does more OS than I do. They seem to pretty much only do operative and sick call/exams, while I have tried as much as I can to do a variety of things. I have stayed in touch with the other dentists from my AEGD and it sounds like their situations are fairly similar to where I am at. I think I am the only one left out of 8 residents who hasn't been sent overseas yet, one other guy I'm not sure about though.
I would have to say that the job is pretty low stress, I normally have plenty of time for each patient and don't have to worry about the clock or squeezing in hygiene checks. I think the specialists feel the same way also. I work in a private practice a few days a month and can tell you that private practice is much more stressful and hurried. The hygienists are always needing hygiene checks and it seems like I never have enough time per patient. In private practice I see anywhere from 10-15 patients in addition to hygiene checks, so by the end of the day I am beat. Most of my private practice patients only need one or two fillings, so I see a lot more patients. I also treat a lot of kids, which can be either very fun or very stressful depending on how they behave.
I hope this helps and let me know if you have any other questions.