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If Dental school is really harder than medical school, why is that?
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So being that I have only experienced dental school, and only one year at that, it would be impossible for me to know for certain. Only people who have experienced both could give you a fairly accurate assessment and even then there could be variables.
Anyhow, at least for me, what makes dentistry a lot more difficult is that you have tons of info thrown at you, and then at the same time, you have incredibly intricate hand skills that you have to master. I find it pretty easy to hunker down and study for hours at a time for exams (probably what most of med school consists of). Practicing preps and restorations is very time consuming and at times frustrating. There are people who take to it like a fish to water, but I'm not one of them.
Anyhow, at least for me, what makes dentistry a lot more difficult is that you have tons of info thrown at you, and then at the same time, you have incredibly intricate hand skills that you have to master. I find it pretty easy to hunker down and study for hours at a time for exams (probably what most of med school consists of). Practicing preps and restorations is very time consuming and at times frustrating. There are people who take to it like a fish to water, but I'm not one of them.
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An OMFS resident on an externship broke it down like this for me:
There are 2 reasons medical school is easier:
Reason 1: Years 1-2 in medical are biomedical sciences. In dental school, you have biomedical sciences plus dental sciences and labs. Most places the sciences are not as in depth, but that doesn't change the schedule. Dental school is 8-5, medical school simply isn't (MOST PLACES).
Reason 2: Responsibility. Even when the schedules start to look more alike, medical students in their final years don't really have any responsibility for the patients they work with. All of that is shouldered by the residents over them. I've heard medical school years 3-4 described as "glorified shadowing."
In dental school, you're pretty much quarterbacking the entire case. You stay until the work is done, no one else is going to do that lab work for you, and when your restoration fails after a month, guess who's fault it is?
However, medical school is just a stepping stone to residency. Dental school is (for most) a terminal education. Medical education, considered as a whole, is a much more difficult path and I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that.
There are 2 reasons medical school is easier:
Reason 1: Years 1-2 in medical are biomedical sciences. In dental school, you have biomedical sciences plus dental sciences and labs. Most places the sciences are not as in depth, but that doesn't change the schedule. Dental school is 8-5, medical school simply isn't (MOST PLACES).
Reason 2: Responsibility. Even when the schedules start to look more alike, medical students in their final years don't really have any responsibility for the patients they work with. All of that is shouldered by the residents over them. I've heard medical school years 3-4 described as "glorified shadowing."
In dental school, you're pretty much quarterbacking the entire case. You stay until the work is done, no one else is going to do that lab work for you, and when your restoration fails after a month, guess who's fault it is?
However, medical school is just a stepping stone to residency. Dental school is (for most) a terminal education. Medical education, considered as a whole, is a much more difficult path and I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that.
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When you graduate dental school, the majority of states are ready to give you a license allowing you to go out there and practice on that one body part (the head and some of the neck) you spent 4 years studying.
When you graduate med school, no state will license you without a residency. So now you spend 3+ years focusing on one body part/organ system and then you can get your license to practice on that one body part/organi system you specialized in.
Med students where I went to school went home at 12 every day during first and second years. Dental students almost never left earlier than 3, and usually had class/lab until 5 every day for the first 2 years. Med students took only lecture classes, dental students took those same lecture classes followed by more dental lecture and dental lab classes. Those dental lab classes demand a lot of work on your own time to pass. There is no class in the med school equivalent to dental labs.
When you graduate med school, no state will license you without a residency. So now you spend 3+ years focusing on one body part/organ system and then you can get your license to practice on that one body part/organi system you specialized in.
Med students where I went to school went home at 12 every day during first and second years. Dental students almost never left earlier than 3, and usually had class/lab until 5 every day for the first 2 years. Med students took only lecture classes, dental students took those same lecture classes followed by more dental lecture and dental lab classes. Those dental lab classes demand a lot of work on your own time to pass. There is no class in the med school equivalent to dental labs.
I would say that dental school if more 'challening' than harder, because you have to be well-rounded in both the biological science and dental material/dental technique academics. Then at the same time, you need ARTISTIC skills to make good dentures, or great/fantastic hand skills to make cavity preps, wax a full crown or onlay, and good visual skills to mount your cast on the articulator properly.
Basically, being a dentist is like being a "surgeon", partially a physician (since you diagnose oral diseases, etc) an "anesthesiologist" and an "artist" at the same time!!
^^ Totally agree that the dental lab courses can take up a lot of time, time needed to study for the didactic courses. Sometimes your gold crown is not casted properly, or your dentures don't look "perfect" so you have to re-do your lab work. That's the bummer part, and probably what makes being a dental student being more challening than being a medical school student. That's just my opinion.
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Well I don't know, I wouldn't say 'challenging." I'd say it's more Herculean, ambitious, arduous, backbreaking, bothersome, burdensome, crucial, demanding, difficile, easier said than done, effortful, exacting, formidable, galling, hard-won, heavy, immense, intricate, irritating, labored, laborious, no picnic, not easy, onerous, operose, painful, of a problem, problematic, prohibitive, rigid, severe, stiff, strenuous, titanic, toilsome, tough, troublesome, trying, unyielding, uphill, upstream, or wearisome.
Definitely not challenging though.
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One small point about that last post:
Dentists don't do what doctors do.
Other than that, it made sense. 🙄
Dentists don't do what doctors do.
Other than that, it made sense. 🙄
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Med students/Dental students are both slightly narcissistic. Each wants to feel superior to their counterparts. It could be argued that there are major inferiority complexes and psychological issues on both sides.
The fact of the matter is that both schools are hard. The advantage of dental schools is that for 4 years of training, you make more money than primary care docs. For 3 more years of training, you make more money than most specialist physicians. You have no midlevel competition/future encroachment on your turf. Your payment/salaries are under the radar and not a national debate so you can continue to charge 100 dollars for 5 mins with the patient and nobody questions it. People are so angry at physicians, that society doesnt bother looking at dentists. You are all fee for service, very little insurance, which makes your business more profitable than half of MD/DO practices. You also rarely carry pagers and the reality of being "on call" is known to very few dentists, outside of omfs' residents. Oh yeah, and you have half the licensing exams MD/DO's have.
You look at teeth, we look at hemorrhoids.
A lot of times we have to get to the hospital by 4 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m. This gets worse in residency when we are "on call".
You have less lawsuits/ lower cost liability insurance.
You mess up, someone's tooth KILLS them with pain. When most MD/DO's mess up the severity ranges from anaphylaxis (where you will get sued, i'm guessing for more money than the tooth pain or DEATH, in which case you will get sued and possibly lose your license. (ask any OMFS doc (the closest field to what >50% of MD/DO's do) about the stress of lawsuits/losing a life.)
Seems to me like it is a much better gig to go the dental route.
In the end it is all about MONEY and LIFESTYLE!! you make more, you work less when out in practice, you have no call, you are fee for service/no insurance, Obama isnt busting your b**** and people pay you 100 bucks because their tooth hurts and you have a drill in your hand.
I really want to marry a dentist. I think female dentists are SOOO HOT!😍 I wish I was a dentist.
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I am the med student...well actually, i'm cooler than most med students. I really dont give a sh** which school is harder. Fighting over that is probably the nerdiest thing you could do with your time, lol. Like I said, i'd rather be a dentist but that boat already sailed. Now i'll settle for dating a dentist!! any takers😍
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Please post pics STAT. Thanks.
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ummmm....
being a dentist is like being a dentist. It is nothing like being a surgeon.
You can't "partially" be a physician or an "anesthesiologist".
That is like saying a dental hygienist is like partially a dentist.
Dentists know little medicine, even less anesthesia- just like MD's know nothing at all about teeth. And there is nothing wrong with that, we all have our own roles.
Don't try to compare a 36 MOD to a CABGx4. It is not the same....
N
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We are getting close Ocean. The MD version of OMS programs have arrived. 🙂
Canuck, pull the stuck up MD portion of the OMS program out of your butt. Although there are things I don't agree with TheNobleTooth, he wasn't saying that a dentist IS a surgeon, a dentist IS a physician and a dentist IS an anestheiologist. I believe he was trying to basically say if you are comparing dentistry to the medical profession, a dentist does some surgical procedures, a little diagnosing and anesthesia. Yes, dentists are not surgeons, not physicians, not anesthesiologists. But, dentists do minor surgical procedures. What do you think doing tissue grafts, implants, operative procedures, sinus lifts are? They are minor surgical procedures. They aren't major, but they are surgical. Dentists do diagnose certain illnesses. There many times that dentists diagnose things that are found on the head and neck region (sometimes systemically) before a family practioner does. Dentists do administer anesthesia. Actually, there are I believe a dozen places nationwide which allow dentists to go through anesthesia residencies and can administer anesthesia alongside any anestheiologist. Plus, what do you think getting certified in i.v. sedation, nitrous, and even regular local anesthia is?
Sir, you have earned your right to defend yourself. You have gone through dental school. You have gone through medical school. You have your DDS and your MD. Great. But, check the ego at the door. TheNoble Tooth was only trying to make a comparison. No one claims dentists are any type of physician. We don't have our MD. Personally, I believe dentistry is basically a specialty of mediciine and that we should go to medical school first and do a residency in the specialty of dentisty, but that is my opinion. That aside, with the way we obtain our dental education, we cannot claim to be physicians and unless you have gone through the 6 yr OMS residency as you have, we will not claim to be. But, comparisons can be made - how much of a comparison will vary upon a person's education and training.
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Ouch. Dude. I was just saying, it is misleading to the OP to claim to be "partially" all of these things. It is insulting to the dental profession to post something like that man. It is also insulting to our colleagues in anesthesia to lay "partial" claim to their specialty, a specialty that they dedicated every minute of 5 years of their life to. Hence my point about dental hygiene. That is like a hygienist saying "well I'm practically a dentist anyway"
I agree there are small elements of said medical specialties in dentistry. There is also a little bit of engineering, marketing, physics, business, but we never hear that we are "partial" engineers...
That is why some knob medical students claim we have an inferiority complex. Why do we have to add all these titles/designations. I am damn proud I am dentist- you should be too. I have no problem with that. Somehow you have decided I have a huge ego from my post and I am speaking from the medical side of things which is not true. I purposely correct ppl when they overlook/downplay my DDS.
That degree was hard to get.
I hope I am making sense.
N
NAVY DDS 2010
I've seen a lot of OMFS who once they go the MD route have the I'm higher and mightier than thou art attitude. Based on your response, that is how it came across. I thin your response could have been resaid a little softer as could have my response to yours.
I am very proud to have chosen to be a dentist over medicine, that is why I stand up for the field of dentistry.
As far as the comparison knows, I think you aren't giving the OP and the rest of enough credit. No one thinks we (dentists) are phsicians of any type. I don't think the poster you were responding to was misleading at all. He was just trying to compare what we do. We as dentists do a little bit of surgical, anesthesia and diagnosing as a physician would do - minimal in comparison (except local anesthesia since most physicians do less local anesthesia than dentist), but still we do these things. Now if you want to bring in comparisons to other professions outside medicine, we could go on and on and on. I don't think that is necesary, nor relavent to this discussion since we are not talking about engineers, physicists, business majors, etc. We are discussing dentistry and medicine, hence the relationship of the jobs a dentists does to the field of medicine. Making comparisons is the only way you can, in your own view, make a decision of what you feel is harder. If you cannot make similar comparisons, then it is like comparing apples to oranges.
Based on your response to my response, I will retract the check the ego at the door comment as you expanded on your rcomments. I'll forgive and forget if you do. 🙂
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The best part of this post is that there are posts over in the medical forums about it lol. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=654649
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=654650
I guess the OP of those wanted to rally up the troops for a flame war or something
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=654650
I guess the OP of those wanted to rally up the troops for a flame war or something
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I had such a crush on my last dentist, I spent a good two weeks eating candy and drinking soda in an attempt to grow any latent cavities. I kid you not.
She wasn't that great when it came time to fill the damn thing. Said it was small and that I could probably do the procedure without novocaine. Of course, 1) I had to act like a tough guy and agree, and 2) it turned out to be a lot bigger than she expected. Still, she was damn cute when she was working.
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The best part of this post is that there are posts over in the medical forums about it lol. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=654649
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=654650
I guess the OP of those wanted to rally up the troops for a flame war or something
I admit, I never expected my thread to be spoken about in the pre-med section.
Sheesh, I was just wondering why people say so and so too.
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Dude, my dentist's hygeinists are HOT. I totally love going to the dentist. The combo of nitrous, the comfy chair, the pics of the carribean and the hot hygeinists is like a frickin vacation.
If i was a dentist i'd hire the hottest hygeinists. It would be so sweet.
I love nitrous.
You guys are all missing the point. Medicine/dentistry..they are jobs. You can chase the prestige bus if you want but its a waste of time. Even the OMS guy or the NS guy will never have the power in society that Miley Cyrus has! Lol, laugh, but honestly, it is true. We all need to get over ourselves. What do I want: minimum hours, maximum pay, minimum complications and maximum vacation time. And a pleasant low stress work environment with minimal paper work and insurance bs.
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Radiology?
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Sounds like you have 2 choices: Derm or Dentistry.
LOL at those premed threads. No chips on anyone's shoulders. Most dentists I've met are glad they are dentists. Dental school isn't harder in terms of academics. It's harder because it is a serious time management issue. There are less hours to cram all the medical and dental didactic info thrown at you and get the waxups and castings done. Forget it if your crack open your investment and find out your casting is shapeless lump...6+ hours gone, back to square one, and there is probably a quiz you need to study for tomorrow.
From what I've seen, medical residency is where the time crunch happens for those folks. I'm not entirely sure what it means to be on q2 call (every other night?) but I know I never want to experience it and am thankful someone else chose that path.
^^^ that last line really did make me lol
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alright med students, take no prisoners
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They don't call them skin dentists for nothing. But why would anyone want to spend ten years to become a skin dentist when u can be a real dentist in four?
Edit: interesting how that would have sounded insane a decade ago, but now it actually makes sense.
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In anatomy, our professor threw up one slide on the teeth during one of our head and neck lectures. "Congratulations," he said, "you now know more about teeth than 95% of doctors."
As for which is harder, I have no idea. 95% of what I know about dental school comes from this thread. It certainly sounds harder based on what's here. Then again, med school can be a different experience for those who are just doing what's required and those who are aiming for a competitive specialty. I don't have dental labs, but I have research to do and extracurriculars I'm involved in. Volunteering at our free clinic could be considered to be a lab, and I definitely know how it feels to waste hours/days when an experiment goes wrong.
N
NAVY DDS 2010
The ECs are your choice, but then again a lot of people in dental school get involved in some form of ECs if they are looking to specialize. Research - I don't know if that is mandatory for med students or not, but there are also a lot of dental students who do research as well again if they are looking to specialize or they are in need of the research grat money.
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Hmm, I don't think I've ever seen a dentist do neurosurgery.
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Of course, you've also never seen a neurosurgeon replace anyone's missing teeth. And you've probably never seen either of them snake a clogged toilet. Point being, as someone else already said, we all have our roles.
As for the OP's question, I can't answer it either. All I can tell you is that dental school is hard enough that you won't have time to indulge your haunting fear of whether someone, somewhere, is doing something less/equally/more difficult.
I have!
I saw an OMS resident dissect the inferior alveolar nerve and debride of neurotoxic root canal sealer under an SOM. That was a very delicate surgery.
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It's settlers then. Dentists are the shiznitz. Mds can kiss our @sses. Only an masochist would want to be a md these days.
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I say you actually get accepted to a dental school and experience it before speculating like this. Med students think that dental students have a collective inferiority complex and I can't blame them.
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dental students are always bringing this up like they have something to prove. last time i went to the dentist and told her i was in med school, she thoroughly explained to me (while she cleaned my teeth) how difficult dental school is and how med school is probably not that hard. also we share an anatomy lab with dental students, and one time a dental student comes over to our group and proclaims with little tact that they work so much harder than us. im guessing the ones who always feel the need to compare themselves to med students are the ones that got rejected from med school. but then again most every other field in healthcare always finds the need to compare themselves to physicians. why is that? it's fairly obvious
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I never understood why everyone feels the need to pick the fight of "i'm better than you." PA/NP's/CRNA vs MD vs DO vs DDS etc. Its a battle for prestige and money.
Meanwhile, the guy who invented the ketchup packet lives in LA in a multimillion dollar mansion overlooking the ocean.
Get over it. We work for a living. Salaries are based on hrs worked x reimbursement (either via medicare/fee for service/ insurance). Most of us will never be in the role of making our money work for us (above a certain extent at least).
i remember i had an ex-gf who used to tell me "dental school is so much harder than med schl" as I struggled through my classes. I was pis*** bc it shows a lack of respect. Why cant you respect the fact that we are both in competetive fields. I dumped her. She will never be happy her entire life.
There will always be someone "greater" than you. Accept it.
Meanwhile, the guy who invented the ketchup packet lives in LA in a multimillion dollar mansion overlooking the ocean.
Get over it. We work for a living. Salaries are based on hrs worked x reimbursement (either via medicare/fee for service/ insurance). Most of us will never be in the role of making our money work for us (above a certain extent at least).
i remember i had an ex-gf who used to tell me "dental school is so much harder than med schl" as I struggled through my classes. I was pis*** bc it shows a lack of respect. Why cant you respect the fact that we are both in competetive fields. I dumped her. She will never be happy her entire life.
There will always be someone "greater" than you. Accept it.
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Both are hard, who cares?
But, I do have one question... do dental students having any time during their training where they spend 80hrs/wk doing clinical training while studying like M3's do??
But, I do have one question... do dental students having any time during their training where they spend 80hrs/wk doing clinical training while studying like M3's do??
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Ha, ha... great answer. With that I think we should just accept that the experience of medical school is different from dental school. We have no reason to care about which is worse and why.NO, Thank God!
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Why have I not seen or heard of ANY of my friends in med school say anything about this? All of them entering M4... (and I'm not just basing it on 1 friend.. more like 7-8 of them). If you're talking about medical residency, then yes, it's like getting a pole shoved up your ass. That I will agree too.
All I am saying is that dentists don't learn all the general stuff in-depth like doctors but we do have a general idea of what it is. We concentrate on head and neck. And we do the basic science, all that in 4 yrs.
Whereas doctors take 2 yrs to do basic sciences and all the systems, then 2 more yrs to go in-depth with clinical training. THEN AFTER THAT, they decide whether or not they want to specialize, taking 3 to 5-6-7-8 yrs getting where they want to.
Dentistry is hard because it's condensed. Medicine is hard because it's a longer route where you learn about things you're gonna eventually forget.
I just hope that no one is choosing his or her future career based on how easier it might be.
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I put in 80+ hour weeks on both my M3 and M4 surgery rotations, and I put in plenty of 60-70 hour weeks on OB/gyn.
N
NAVY DDS 2010
Here is the plain and simple truth. Dental students - their life sucks more during the first 2 years. We have more classes than medical students because we have the basic science courses like med students and then we have our dental classes as well and we also must do a butt load of labratory procedures to prepare us for the 3rd and 4th years. During the 3rd and 4th years - medical students lives suck way more. They not only have to work a lot more hours, they get treated like the scum of the earth by their residents and attendings. And depending on the rotations they are doing, they have to do a lot of researching info for upcoming planned procedures, info they must learn because they didn't know it one day and were told to go learn it, etc.
Overall, life in general sucks for both medical and dental students. Whose life sucks worse depends on what stage in the education they are in.
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This guy gets it. It's really not that complicated.
Dental students have more classes the first two years (even if some may not be as in depth as med classes) which probably makes it harder for most students because of the volume of work.
But (and this is just my opinion) med students have it way harder 3rd/4th year (especially third year) because their time is not their own and they still have to find time to study for their shelf exams among other things (like keeping their lips firmly planted on an attending/resident/intern ass so they don't make your life a living hell, which I sure as **** would be doing as well).
I think the "suck factor" of 3rd and 4th year med students "wins" over the suck factor of 1st/2nd year dental students, therefore, I declare med school the winner of suckbowl 2009. Hooray!!! We win, wait...no...lose...wait...whatever...
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we all suck
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This thread is making my eyes bleed. Closing.
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