Help! Questions about dentistry!

[mylittlepug]

I know it's long, but please bear with me because I really need these questions answered.

I'm currently a student at a community college (because it's cheap) where I'm taking my pre-requisites for pharmacy school. However, I've become very concerned about the outlook for pharmacy and am considering abandoning it in favor of dentistry, which is far more interesting to me. I've begun to read a lot about it and would like to ask some questions. I intend to begin shadowing dentists in my area and ask them these questions, but I want to get a better understanding here first. Please try to answer in as much depth as you can. Thanks!

1) Are there residencies you have to complete after dental school? How soon after dental school do people usually open their own practice? It seems like it would be daunting to open a practice soon after dental school and go into even more debt when you already owe some $150,000 in students loans. How easy is it to get financing for that, and how long does it typically take to pay off that loan? Do most people buy an existing practice or start a new one? Are there many dentists who choose to work at existing practices instead of opening their own? How easy is it to find work that way (especially part time)? Is the salary for a dentist who works at an existing practice far lower than that of a dentist who owns their own practice?

2) For any dentists on here who own their own practice, or know someone who does, what is it like? Is it very stressful? What were your hours like when you first started, and how did that change? Would you say dentistry is a low-stress profession? I read that dentists usually work 4 days a week with one hour lunch breaks -- how does that work when you run your own practice? Do you always employ another dentist to work on the days you don't? What happens when you want to go on vacation for a week?

3) Something that saddens me is the fact that I'm really squeamish. As someone very interested in teeth and has the grades to get into dental school, it would be absolutely devastating to me if my squeamishness forced me to give up on dentistry. I know I could never be a doctor because of it (I have SO much respect for med students and doctors because of what they can see and do without being physically sick!). I've been watching a lot of procedures online to get over my squeamishness and I'm okay with basic wisdom tooth removals, but things like suturing and cutting the gums all apart gets to me. This is just about too much for me:



So my question is, what procedures to general dentists usually perform in a typical week, and how many times? What do most patients come in for? Do you have to perform a lot of gory surgeries like in the video I linked, or would you refer the patient to a specialist for that? Do you always refer patients needing a root canal to endodontists or do you perform some yourself? What if I became an orthodontist and opened a practice specializing in that -- would I still need to do gory surgeries regularly? Could I hire another dentist to do the more gory procedures at my practice?

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[niv3k]

I can try to answer these the best I can, there are others who are more knowledgable and hopefully they can add or correct me if I'm not right.

1) There are no required residencies after completion of dental school. There are optional residencies that may allow you to further better your skills. As for opening a practice after dental school, I have read of several people who have done this, I've even shadowed one dentist who did this. It can be toss up on whether one is successful or not. The dentist I shadowed opened a practice soon after graduating but did not do well, eventually moving on to partnering with someone else. I have seen some on these very forums who (instead of tackling their debt aggressively), purchased a practice and consolidated their loans together for a lower interest rate. They were able to bring in a higher income and the long term results may be even more beneficial than if they did pay off their debt aggressively. As for how easy is it to finance a practice, I've read that banks are more open to helping out someone who wants to buy a dental practice that is already established rather than opening and building one from scratch as they are an unknown entity and success is not always a sure thing (again that's just reading from what others have said, I can't cite anyone specifically). I don't think that means that you can't get a loan to start up your own practice from scratch though, there's another thread going on right now where several people are discussing about this matter. As for being your own boss vs working for someone, there are dentists who choose to work at an existing practice rather than their own. Whether they are an associate for a private practice or they decided to join a corporate dental chain such as Aspen. It's very easy to find work for a corporate chain though you may not like it as they require a certain amount of revenue to be brought in by that particular dentist. This often means over diagnosing and giving out procedures that were not needed. I would not say that the salary for a dentist who works at an existing practice would be far lower. There are dentists who have brought home 250k-300k working for others and these are people I know personally. At the same time I've read of some who were struggling with their current practice.

2) not a dentist yet so I can't answer these questions.

3) Though you will have to eventually finish requirements such as extractions etc for dental school. The beauty of it is that when you're a practicing dentist you can do what you want to do. If you don't want to do 3rd molar extractions, send them off. Don't like root canals? Refer them to an endo. The dentist I use to go to didn't do root canals, sent every one of them off. Only drawback to practicing like this is you may make less money? I'm not for sure on that either since there are some dentists who do lots of cosmetics and are plenty successful. If you were an orthodontist, which is a very competitive specialty btw so I wouldn't only bank on becoming an ortho (but that's me), you wouldn't need to do any gory or bloody surgical procedures.

I hope I gave some insight on your questions. Maybe there are others who can add/correct me on some of these questions.

 

[Blarelli]

I know it's long, but please bear with me because I really need these questions answered.

I'm currently a student at a community college (because it's cheap) where I'm taking my pre-requisites for pharmacy school. However, I've become very concerned about the outlook for pharmacy and am considering abandoning it in favor of dentistry, which is far more interesting to me. I've begun to read a lot about it and would like to ask some questions. I intend to begin shadowing dentists in my area and ask them these questions, but I want to get a better understanding here first. Please try to answer in as much depth as you can. Thanks!

1) Are there residencies you have to complete after dental school? How soon after dental school do people usually open their own practice? It seems like it would be daunting to open a practice soon after dental school and go into even more debt when you already owe some $150,000 in students loans. How easy is it to get financing for that, and how long does it typically take to pay off that loan? Do most people buy an existing practice or start a new one? Are there many dentists who choose to work at existing practices instead of opening their own? How easy is it to find work that way (especially part time)? Is the salary for a dentist who works at an existing practice far lower than that of a dentist who owns their own practice?

2) For any dentists on here who own their own practice, or know someone who does, what is it like? Is it very stressful? What were your hours like when you first started, and how did that change? Would you say dentistry is a low-stress profession? I read that dentists usually work 4 days a week with one hour lunch breaks -- how does that work when you run your own practice? Do you always employ another dentist to work on the days you don't? What happens when you want to go on vacation for a week?

3) Something that saddens me is the fact that I'm really squeamish. As someone very interested in teeth and has the grades to get into dental school, it would be absolutely devastating to me if my squeamishness forced me to give up on dentistry. I know I could never be a doctor because of it (I have SO much respect for med students and doctors because of what they can see and do without being physically sick!). I've been watching a lot of procedures online to get over my squeamishness and I'm okay with basic wisdom tooth removals, but things like suturing and cutting the gums all apart gets to me. This is just about too much for me:



So my question is, what procedures to general dentists usually perform in a typical week, and how many times? What do most patients come in for? Do you have to perform a lot of gory surgeries like in the video I linked, or would you refer the patient to a specialist for that? Do you always refer patients needing a root canal to endodontists or do you perform some yourself? What if I became an orthodontist and opened a practice specializing in that -- would I still need to do gory surgeries regularly? Could I hire another dentist to do the more gory procedures at my practice?

Everybody gets over their problems with seeing blood very quickly, even the types that were fainting during anatomy labs. You really shouldn't let that concern you.
A "normal" general dentist typically will do a several units of crown and bridge work each week, a good handful of fillings, some denture work, some extractions, and some endo, but there is no hard and fast rule. It's all about what kind of practice you build for yourself. There's a lot of dentists out there that live on veneer cases, and a lot of other dentists that really only do direct restorations and extractions in a lower income type practice. If you don't want to do dentures, you can refer to a prosthodontist. If you don't want to do any extractions, I'm sure you can find an oral surgeon that would love to send a monthly gift basket to your practice to get your attention. You really don't have to do anything you aren't comfortable with. That being said, you better get comfortable with a lot of stuff or you won't be making a very good living.

 

[syap]

Cadaver lab could be a problem!