Transferring from medical school to Dental School

[youngman1234]

Hello,

I am a M1 at a state flagship MD school.

I'm in my mid-twenties, and from the west coast, I've worked, and sacrificed everything to get here. I had a very negative experience in undergrad because i had to work full time and was in an intense program. So far, I'm having a much, much better time in med school.

Let me preface it by saying that I have no qualms with med school. I'm doing fairly well in my classes, and I don't have a problem with medical education. However, the outcome, and the life of an attending is something that I no longer desire.

So it comes at a personal heartbreak that I've begun to second guess my decision to enter medicine, after seeing the medical field first hand, the outlook of medicine, and what my life will look like during MS, residency, junior attending, and senior attending.


1. The hours. They never stop. I feel shell shocked after being on preceptorship for 14 hours in the ER. I can't imagine the thought of living like that for the rest of my life.

2. The residency. I want to do something where I can work with my hands. In medicine, this limits to a number of specialties with 4-5+fellowship year residencies. I've begun to dread the idea of spending at least 4 years of my life working 80 hour weeks. + the possibility of malignancy in my team or attendings.

3. EMR, H&P. OH Lord. Taking mountains of paperwork home, and having Epic open until the time I fall asleep sounds awful.

4. Lack of control over your career/location.

5. Private practice and being your own boss is likely impossible for our generation.

6. Dealing with third-party payers. The thought of being on the phone with insurance companies for 1.5 hours a day makes me want to punch puppies.

7. General despair over declining reimbursements. If you're in a field where you bill only a handful of codes (e.g. rads onc) if one of those codes get a 5% reduction in reimbursement rates, then this will significantly impact your earnings. Reimbursements seem to be headed for dark times, as medicare threatens to destabilize the whole economy.

8. I've wanted to keep a constant patient base, and follow my patients over a long course of time. It is increasingly apparent to me that I will not be able to do this, even if I go into primary care.

9. The difficulty of entering urban markets. Dentistry has trouble with this as well, because of saturation. But I feel that in medicine, it is difficult to enter very desirable areas, e.g. toronto, seattle, Boston, NYC, etc. I've known people who fellowship hopped waiting for a position to open up.
I feel that urban associate dentists make less, but have a easier time finding jobs.

10. Constant fear of malpractice suits, and the high stress environment that a litigation driven care creates.





I need to hear some opinions:
1. Could any current dentists or D-students tell me what the negatives of dentistry and dental school are?

2. Current physicians. Do things really get better? I've heard some attending say that it does. I've heard other attending say, don't be fooled by the great myth of medicine. Given the thoughts that I have about the outlook in medicine, would these things be resolved with time?

3. Am I just being too much of a negative nancy?

4. Do other med students have similar concerns?

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[Greyangel6]

I'm only a D1 but one of the cons of dschool i know of, is the high cost of attendance (references in the ADEA guide book)

The prospect of dentistry for new graduates are not great either. From what I've gathered from friends and newly grad dentists that I shadowed, corporate dentistry is becoming more of a prominent option than associate positions at a private practice. Compromised dentistry is a thing too, it occurs more often than expected. And debt management plays an important role whether you need the crown more than the patient needs the crown (reference to my ethics class lol).

As far as dschool goes, hand skills are very important, that's the bread and butter for most if not all dentists while that's not all true for physicians. So just make sure that you're not suffering from "grass is always greener on the other side" syndrome before you take the dive. ^^

 

[Incis0r]

Hello,

I am a M1 at a state flagship MD school. NICE SETUP. Congrats!

I'm in my mid-twenties, and from the west coast, I've worked, and sacrificed everything to get here.I believe it. I had a very negative experience in undergrad because i had to work full time and was in an intense program. So far, I'm having a much, much better time in med school.

Let me preface it by saying that I have no qualms with med school. I'm doing fairly well in my classes, and I don't have a problem with medical education. However, the outcome, and the life of an attending is something that I no longer desire. Good that you realized this before completing medical school.

So it comes at a personal heartbreak that I've begun to second guess my decision to enter medicine, after seeing the medical field first hand, the outlook of medicine, and what my life will look like during MS, residency, junior attending, and senior attending.


1. The hours. They never stop. I feel shell shocked after being on preceptorship for 14 hours in the ER. I can't imagine the thought of living like that for the rest of my life. Yep. one of the reasons I switched from pre-med to pre-dental my freshman year of college.

2. The residency. I want to do something where I can work with my hands. Dentistry is good for this In medicine, this limits to a number of specialties with 4-5+fellowship year residencies. I've begun to dread the idea of spending at least 4 years of my life working 80 hour weeks. + the possibility of malignancy in my team or attendings. Another reason, based on my shadowing MDs, that I decided to not go for Med School.

3. EMR, H&P. OH Lord. Taking mountains of paperwork home, and having Epic open until the time I fall asleep sounds awful. A third reason I decided to switch from pre-med to pre-dent.

4. Lack of control over your career/location. How so? This can exist in dentistry as well...if you're thinking of practicing in CA, NYC right out of school, it's a no-no.

5. Private practice and being your own boss is likely impossible for our generation. It's fading in dentistry as well. Still very popular, but group practice and corporate is the incoming trend.

6. Dealing with third-party payers.The thought of being on the phone with insurance companies for 1.5 hours a day makes me want to punch puppies. WHOA. You say you want to be in private practice, but you don't want to deal with insurance companies? The fee-for-service days in dentistry are gone and rarely are practices 100% FFS. PPO dominates now. You WILL deal with insurance if you go into private practice.

7. General despair over declining reimbursements. This is happening in dentistry as well. If you're in a field where you bill only a handful of codes (e.g. rads onc) if one of those codes get a 5% reduction in reimbursement rates, then this will significantly impact your earnings. Reimbursements seem to be headed for dark times, as medicare threatens to destabilize the whole economy.

8. I've wanted to keep a constant patient base, and follow my patients over a long course of time. It is increasingly apparent to me that I will not be able to do this, even if I go into primary care. Why won't you be able to keep a constant base in primary care?

9. The difficulty of entering urban markets. Dentistry has trouble with this as well, because of saturation. But I feel that in medicine, it is difficult to enter very desirable areas, e.g. toronto, seattle, Boston, NYC, etc. I've known people who fellowship hopped waiting for a position to open up.
I feel that urban associate dentists make less, but have a easier time finding jobs.

10. Constant fear of malpractice suits, and the high stress environment that a litigation driven care creates.

I have responded in blue inside the quote.
Also, do some shadowing. You described that you hate insurance, well dentistry deals with
that too. Do all of this before you give up a MD spot.

Finally, you're asking for input of MDs and med students....this is the dental forum. You won't find a ton of med students on here.

 

[youngman1234]

Thanks for the thoughts and inputs.

Incisor. first, I want to commend you on having foresight.
In medicine, private insurance reimbursement rates are capped at 120% of medicare reimbursement rates which are pitiful. That means that whatever the govt decides to slash, gets immediately felt across the board. This is what has physicians so upset. As far as I know, dentistry has nothing like this.

As for third-party intmediation of care. Yes, dentistry has this problem as well. But The dentists I know work with a hybrid model of insurance/FFS/payment plans. Also, in dental insurance, it is usually the pt that files the reimbursements.

@Greyangel6
The only thing about dentistry that scares me is the over saturation. My friends that have graduated D-school have had no trouble getting jobs in saturated cities. I even think that I will enjoy practice management. I really enjoy business, and I've even begun looking up different practice management models and procedures. Ways to tackle overhead, marketing, etc etc.
How do you view the job market? Aren't like 50% of dentists over 50? Isn't there a patient bomb of the baby boomers as they age?
I was talking to a mentor who graduated from D-school in the 70's. He said that things were worse back then, and then he lived through the "golden age".
I'm actually really excited about the business models that you could have in dentistry. I definitely think that the potential is there.

 

[Miley Cyrus.]

Dentistry has either the same problems or some sort of variation of problems 4-10 which you listed.
Dentists that are older are just like all the MDs that are older: both are postponing retirement by like 5-10 yrs because of the beating many of them and their retirement accounts took during the economic recession.

Corporate chains (Aspen, WesternDental, Kool Smiles, Heartland, etc) are kind of like large hospitals in that it is ruining the prospects of private practice. A lot of grads with lots of debt are what the large chains are banking on. The government is trying to get its hand on dentistry, and I suspect it is only a matter of time (like 10-15 yrs) before it does.
I wouldn't leave medicine, if I were you. If you are concerned about financial security, then stick with medicine. There is still much more financial security there than in dentistry. When dentists do bad, they do really really bad (like 90k salary). That's not as much the case as it is with medicine. Furthermore, rural areas which aren't as saturated with MDs/DDSs will have a much higher demand for medical services than dental services. Thus going to a rural area can sort of be a remedy for an MD to reach a higher salary. While that phenomenon exists in dentistry as well, it is true only to a much lesser extent.