Is there anyway to slow the opening of new dental schools

[A6project]

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[Kobe08]

Dentistry is changing, no doubt. Higher tuition, mid level providers, decreased reimbursement, higher competition, etc are all going to take a toll on new dentists. However, it is still a great career that can provide for a good standard of living.

Key point is to be prepared. Be educated on the trends that our profession has, and understand what implications it will have on your future. Instead of dismissing visible trends as "paranoia," or just whine about the potential crash and burn, it would be much more prudent to prepare yourself for what could be tough times ahead. Save money, work on speeding yourself up in clinic, find out what locations are conducive to new practices, etc. There is always a way to succeed, especially when you are in an elite group of educated professions like dentists.

I've said it many times before, most people won't get rich practicing dentistry. As a sole method of income, you must either be a very skilled businessman or a very skilled practitioner (or preferable both) to make a high income (>500K) as a dentist. As much as all of us think we are going to be the top 5% earners, most of us are actually going to be in the 95% average.


How is that true at all? If you have been following this thread, you would realize that all our professions are changing rapidly. No one can say for certain what our incomes will look like after 20 years of practice...

DDS, DO, OD, MD, there are such huge ranges in salaries that there is no, "I make more than you, ha!" There are advantages and disadvantages to all these professions, and we all had our personal reasons for choosing to pursue our goals... it sounds ridiculously contrite to argue which profession's average salary is higher.

Shnurek, I'm sorry but I don't think anyone on this dental thread really care how much OD's make. The entire discussion is really irrelevant to this thread, and in fact to this forum...

OP here. Out of curiosity, what is considered the 95% average? Is receiving a net salary of low six figures a year still feasible?

 

[Sublimazing]

OP here. Out of curiosity, what is considered the 95% average? Is receiving a net salary of low six figures a year still feasible?

Absolutely.

 

[clarkbar]

j

 

[clarkbar]

Anyone that thinks that a natural cycle of student debt and poor employment prospects will close down schools is misinformed. There are what, 14,000 applications for 5,000 seats? These rejects will GLADLY take the new seats. Look at law school where the degree has essentially turned useless; dumb undergrads still happily sign up for the useless $200k degree.

Some dental schools did close in the 80's, but those schools ran on the traditional dental school model of a large, inefficient dental school clinic with research facilities. These new dental schools are outsourcing 80% of the clinic facilities and making taxpayers pay for it under the guise of "community health clinics" while still charging exorbitant tuition. They have no research, and hire traveling "lecturers" instead of faculty. Therefore it is the new dental school model that is the real threat and unfortunately if any schools ever close they will be the traditional research based ones that actually contribute to our profession.

These folks will not hesitate to sell out our profession. For example the new Dean of SUNY Buffalo came from one of these new schools and what's the first thing he does? Increase the class size by 30 students with the new international program (IDP) so he can get more money. The IDP program charges an enormous amount of money to basically sell a dental license to foreign grads, and the graduates of India's 200 dental schools will happily shell out the money for a DDS and future green card.

The only chance we have is to bottleneck the licensure process with something like mandatory residencies or to make dental school unprofitable again.

This is the most poignant post about this matter. Ideologues thinking the "market" will adjust and schools will close are wrong and it is imperative that they are disabused of this notion. For instance, I had a friend that was fooled by slick admissions department of an allopathic medical school later bought by for-profit, osteopathic Touro. It was poorly run and medical school for the must focused is devastating.
She decided to quite and go to pharmacy school. At the time, pharmacy salaries were exploding, both workers, BLS--and of course, pharmacy schools, were raving about the new clinical future and unlimited longitudal movement. In only a few years, student output increased 120 percent. Clinical faculty, with no work history and bragging about their sorority lifestyle to students older than them, were hired. People were left out in the cold and the profession's hope of going clinical was destroyed with desperate unemployed people too scared to advocate.
She told me one story where the dean of the school,, also sat on the accreditation board, bragged about how they were going to eliminate pharmacists in retail stores and have techs do it. Retail employment is 50 percent of pharmacy jobs. He also bragged, without any sense of irony, how he published a study saying the shortage still exists. The academic fraudsters that run these interlocking deanships and accreditation boards are ruthless and full of greed. As corporate dental increases, think of the influence on the boards these entities will have.

You need to stop the openings now. If the accreditation agency cared, they would just increase standards like the medical folk. One point dentists don't recognize is that the pace and length of abuse (self-training) is much worse in medicine. It creates a miserable comraderie, much like Vietnam vets, that will prevent the profession from selling itself out. Five schools isn't going to have much of an impact, but what about 10, 15?

 

[tjung789]

She told me one story where the dean of the school,, also sat on the accreditation board, bragged about how they were going to eliminate pharmacists in retail stores and have techs do it. Retail employment is 50 percent of pharmacy jobs. He also bragged, without any sense of irony, how he published a study saying the shortage still exists. The academic fraudsters that run these interlocking deanships and accreditation boards are ruthless and full of greed. As corporate dental increases, think of the influence on the boards these entities will have.

You need to stop the openings now. If the accreditation agency cared, they would just increase standards like the medical folk.
Five schools isn't going to have much of an impact, but what about 10, 15?

This is absolutely true. These academics are the most dishonest, slimy individuals you will find. They hide under some sort of cloak of 'caring about the underserved' and pose themselves as people who are 'experts in public health policy'. They lambast anyone who disagrees with them as 'private practice docs only interested in money'. Academia and the federal government are RUINING AMERICA by pushing their moneythirsty desires on everything from foreign policy (academics love that Saudi money), healthcare, fiscal policies (all the academic pigs go to work on the Fed, and Treasury), the environemental policies, etc. Honestly the corporations aren't that bad compared to the academics.

The federal government has absolutely NO interest in making sure that tuition costs are low. Student loans are a HUGE money-maker for the federal government. The universities have absolutely no incentive to bring down their costs. Put the two together and you get a total price bubble. I really think the education bubble will take a long time to burst. A lot longer than the housing bubble that's for sure.

 

[Shunwei]

She told me one story where the dean of the school,, also sat on the accreditation board, bragged about how they were going to eliminate pharmacists in retail stores and have techs do it. Retail employment is 50 percent of pharmacy jobs. He also bragged, without any sense of irony, how he published a study saying the shortage still exists. The academic fraudsters that run these interlocking deanships and accreditation boards are ruthless and full of greed. As corporate dental increases, think of the influence on the boards these entities will have.

As someone who spent a long time in the academia and know the ivory tower well, I can tell you that most academics are some of the most despicable, base individuals I know. Outwardly, they advertise themselves as noble individuals dedicated to teaching, while in reality they are power-trippers, liars, and greedy bastards. A lot of people don't realize that schools and universities are businesses just like any dental office, and the recent opening of new schools and expansion of international student programs is simply a ploy to make more money, pure and simple. All the talk about shortages, blah blah blah, are smokescreens disguising this intention. Anyone who really thinks that flooding the market with dentists, dental therapists, or foreign dentists is missing the big picture of supply and demand and its long term implications.

 

[Silent Cool]

As someone who spent a long time in the academia and know the ivory tower well, I can tell you that most academics are some of the most despicable, base individuals I know. Outwardly, they advertise themselves as noble individuals dedicated to teaching, while in reality they are power-trippers, liars, and greedy bastards. A lot of people don't realize that schools and universities are businesses just like any dental office, and the recent opening of new schools and expansion of international student programs is simply a ploy to make more money, pure and simple. All the talk about shortages, blah blah blah, are smokescreens disguising this intention. Anyone who really thinks that flooding the market with dentists, dental therapists, or foreign dentists is missing the big picture of supply and demand and its long term implications.

+1.
Another golden post from Shunwei. With each passing day, I grow less and less trustful of academia. I will never donate to ANY university I have attended.

 

[yappy]

To slow the opening of new schools we would need to tighten lending by the fed to students. I feel like the bubble will pop in higher ed relatively soon and then there will be an anti education sentiment in the US. The broke liberal arts majors and ITT tech game developers have not reached critical mass yet; but, we`re getting there...

 

[Ostracized]

Sooner or later there will be new grads with hundreds of thousands in debt who are unable to find a job. Pretty scary.

 

[Shunwei]

Sooner or later there will be new grads with hundreds of thousands in debt who are unable to find a job. Pretty scary.

There already are.

 

[UCSFx2017]

"The ADA has no role in the creation of new dental schools. A professional organization cannot control supply and demand," said Dr. Kennedy, chair of the ADA Council on Dental Education and Licensure.

http://www.ada.org/news/6173.aspx

 

[EpicDentist]

"The ADA has no role in the creation of new dental schools. A professional organization cannot control supply and demand,” said Dr. Kennedy, chair of the ADA Council on Dental Education and Licensure.

http://www.ada.org/news/6173.aspx

What about the accreditation board(s)? What is their role?

 

[dmdluffy]

To accredit schools that meet CODA requirements.

 

[coolslugs]

To slow the opening of new schools we would need to tighten lending by the fed to students. I feel like the bubble will pop in higher ed relatively soon and then there will be an anti education sentiment in the US. The broke liberal arts majors and ITT tech game developers have not reached critical mass yet; but, we`re getting there...

 

[SMDoc]

You guys are fortunate that most dental schools open up clinics which costs $$$$. This may deter shady schools from opening. In the pharmacy bubble schools are paying CVS/WAG to take students on rotation and are hiring H1B/foreign faculty to do teaching.