Gregor Wiesmann
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*Disclaimer: I'm a Pre-Dent. I realize that I do not have this profession figured out, but I wanted to give a list of why I am considering Dentistry.*
I walk into the lunch room, with the entire staff staring at me with their curious eyes. I am told to “Have a seat!” by the receptionist, and I reluctantly accept the offer. I end up sitting right across from the Dentist, who is busy feasting on a bowl of chocolate chip mint ice cream. He looks directly at me and utters the words: “So…….why Dentistry?” with a smile on his face. This was the question I had not prepared for; I began to freak out in my mind, but kept it cool on the outside. I simply replied: “Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m trying to decide between Dentistry and Medicine right now, but I need to do more shadowing to know the answer.” This felt like a stupid response at the time I said it, but as I look back in retrospect, it was actually spot on because it not only answered the questioned, but left the Dentist with the task of trying to prove to me that dentistry was indeed a better choice than medicine, and he only had the afternoon to do it. This was my first shadowing experience in the field of dentistry, and I can say that I enjoyed it immensely.
However, even after I spent the afternoon shadowing the Dentist, I still had a lingering thought in my mind that was trying to say to me “But why would you choose Dentistry instead of Medicine?” Honestly, I haven’t fully experienced each field yet, so I cannot come to a decisive conclusion. I will need to do a lot more shadowing in both fields before I finalize my decision, but that’s okay……..I have plenty of time and nobody ever got bonus points for choosing early. What I can do is make a list of all the reasons so far that make me lean a little bit more towards the dental spectrum.
#1 Working Hours: There are a lot of things that people don’t know about becoming a doctor(Trust me on this one. After the research I’ve done on the internet, you wouldn’t believe what they have to go through), but one common thing that everyone seems to know about them is that they work a lot. I guess you could say, “Well good! They’re supposed to work a lot because they just love sick people and saving the world.” This maybe true, but the problem that I would have is not being able to spend enough time doing the things in life I love. 60-70 hour work weeks may appeal to a specific type of individual, but at this stage in my life, I would feel like running for the hills if had to manage a work schedule like that weekly. So, how many hours do dentists work anyways? Well, it really varies, because some guys are trying to get their own practice up and running, so they’re working 6 days a week, and then you have the semi-retired dentists who only come in the office twice a week. However, if you look at the majority of private practice dentists, they work 4 days a week. This equates to roughly 30 hours a week of work, and 3 day weekends! This really appeals to me because I have so many other interests to pursue in life!
#2 Salary: Okay, I bet you knew this was coming. The truth is, Dentists are not going broke anytime soon……how much do they make? Again, this is the beauty of dentistry; you can potentially make any amount of money based on multiple variables. If you are an fresh graduate from dental school, you will be making a bare minimum of $120,000 a year as an Associate in a corporate office such as Bright Now Dental. This is pretty much the bottom rung when it comes to dental salaries. If you purchase an existing practice or start up one on your own, the sky is the limit to how much you can make, but it is not uncommon at all for private practice dentists to be making $200,000-300,000 a year, especially if you move out of the city to a rural setting where you are the only close office. People will always say that “Physicians make more money than Dentists.” What they don’t realize is that this statement is a very one sided argument. Dentists certainly make as much as Family Practice, or Internal Medicine physicians, but most of the time, their salaries don’t rival that of the surgical specialties in medicine. But you have to take something else into consideration: hours worked, which I addressed in my #1 reason above. Sure, that private practice dentist is ‘only’ making a mere $200,000 a year, and his salary has nothing on the Orthopedic Surgeon who pulls in $500,000, but you have to remember: that dentist is likely working 30 hours a week, while the surgeon is working 60 hours a week. As great as it would be to make half a million a year, what good is it to have all that cash if you don’t even have the time to spend it? And speaking of time, this brings me to my third reason.
#3 Optional Residency: To become a Physician, one must go through 4 years of College, 4 years of Medical school, and anywhere from 3-7 years of Residency(depending on the specialty, another 1-3 years may be required for a ‘Fellowship’). We will use an Orthopedic Surgeon as an example again: he has to do a 5 year Residency, and if he wishes to specialize further into an area such as the Spine, then he must complete a Fellowship. So what’s the deal with this Residency thing anyways? Well, from what I’ve read, you pretty much become a slave to the hospital, working 100 hour work weeks and making a wopping $45,000 a year. Sounds fun, right? And this is something that you must do if you wish to be a Licensed Physician. With Dentists on the other hand, they have the option of doing a Residency after their 4 years of Dental school, or they can just begin to practice as a General Practitioner straight out of school. Several examples of dental residencies include Prosthodontics, Orthodontics, Endodontics, and Oral+Maxillofacial Surgery. I really like the fact that residency is optional, and it would be comforting knowing what you would be doing once you graduate school, which isn’t a given in Medical school. Let me explain in my next reason.
#4 Matching: If the horrible hours and slavery to the hospital wasn’t enough to scare me away from Medicine and towards Dentistry, but this whole idea of ‘not matching’ was in fact scary enough for me. You see, there is a test that you take at the end of your second year of Medical school called the USMLE(United States Medical Licensing Exam) Step 1, and this test basically decides your future. Unless you score high enough on it, you may not get the chance to match into your desired specialty in the Medical field. For example, I am highly interested in Ophthalmology(Eye Physicians who preform Surgery, not Optometrists), and I had my mind made up that I would try to get into Medical school so that I could become one. Then I learned through my reading online that it is a relatively competitive specialty to get into because it has predictable hours, and also very good pay. This means that if I wanted to even get a chance at getting an interview for a Residency program, I would have to score above the average on the USMLE Step 1, as well as several other factors that would determine if I was a competitive applicant to the program. In a way, this kind of ruined my ambitions for Medicine; I didn’t see the point of devoting 8 years of time to study (college + Medical school) if I wasn’t even assured that I would get to practice in my desired specialty. However, with Dentistry, there is no “matching” if you want to become a GP, the matching is again only for the optional residencies. This takes so much ambiguity out of the whole process, knowing what kind of work you will be doing when you graduate.
#5 Business Owner: Like I said, if you go into private practice, your life is pretty good. Not only are you making a nice upper-middle class salary and working 4 days a week, but you also get to ‘run’ the business. This means everything from choosing your employee's, to how you decorate your waiting room, to what kind of chairs you use in the operating room. I don’t know why, but it just seems to really cool to me to be the guy in charge of everything, and to have the power to just magically cancel a day if you’re sick or have an event to attend. This flexibility that you would never have as a Physician.
And that pretty much sums up the majority of my thoughts on this whole Dentistry vs. Medicine thing. Somewhere, there is a very good argument to why dentistry is better in regards to insurance companies and such, but I really don’t have the knowledge to understand what that all means yet. The only thing I know is that the Physician’s of today are less happy than they were in times past, and that the glory days of Medicine are gone.(Or so I have read) Oh, and the dentist I shadowed told me to go dental, but I have a slight feeling that he might be biased somehow……..
I do realize that the content in this post is not 100% accurate, but after talking to a dentist and reading many of the forums on this website, I do not believe anything I have stated here to be too out of line with reality. I would appreciate any comments, and if you are going to criticize, please do so with a constructive mindset. I'm 18, so give me a break. All the best to everyone who visits this thread! Cheers!
I walk into the lunch room, with the entire staff staring at me with their curious eyes. I am told to “Have a seat!” by the receptionist, and I reluctantly accept the offer. I end up sitting right across from the Dentist, who is busy feasting on a bowl of chocolate chip mint ice cream. He looks directly at me and utters the words: “So…….why Dentistry?” with a smile on his face. This was the question I had not prepared for; I began to freak out in my mind, but kept it cool on the outside. I simply replied: “Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m trying to decide between Dentistry and Medicine right now, but I need to do more shadowing to know the answer.” This felt like a stupid response at the time I said it, but as I look back in retrospect, it was actually spot on because it not only answered the questioned, but left the Dentist with the task of trying to prove to me that dentistry was indeed a better choice than medicine, and he only had the afternoon to do it. This was my first shadowing experience in the field of dentistry, and I can say that I enjoyed it immensely.
However, even after I spent the afternoon shadowing the Dentist, I still had a lingering thought in my mind that was trying to say to me “But why would you choose Dentistry instead of Medicine?” Honestly, I haven’t fully experienced each field yet, so I cannot come to a decisive conclusion. I will need to do a lot more shadowing in both fields before I finalize my decision, but that’s okay……..I have plenty of time and nobody ever got bonus points for choosing early. What I can do is make a list of all the reasons so far that make me lean a little bit more towards the dental spectrum.
#1 Working Hours: There are a lot of things that people don’t know about becoming a doctor(Trust me on this one. After the research I’ve done on the internet, you wouldn’t believe what they have to go through), but one common thing that everyone seems to know about them is that they work a lot. I guess you could say, “Well good! They’re supposed to work a lot because they just love sick people and saving the world.” This maybe true, but the problem that I would have is not being able to spend enough time doing the things in life I love. 60-70 hour work weeks may appeal to a specific type of individual, but at this stage in my life, I would feel like running for the hills if had to manage a work schedule like that weekly. So, how many hours do dentists work anyways? Well, it really varies, because some guys are trying to get their own practice up and running, so they’re working 6 days a week, and then you have the semi-retired dentists who only come in the office twice a week. However, if you look at the majority of private practice dentists, they work 4 days a week. This equates to roughly 30 hours a week of work, and 3 day weekends! This really appeals to me because I have so many other interests to pursue in life!
#2 Salary: Okay, I bet you knew this was coming. The truth is, Dentists are not going broke anytime soon……how much do they make? Again, this is the beauty of dentistry; you can potentially make any amount of money based on multiple variables. If you are an fresh graduate from dental school, you will be making a bare minimum of $120,000 a year as an Associate in a corporate office such as Bright Now Dental. This is pretty much the bottom rung when it comes to dental salaries. If you purchase an existing practice or start up one on your own, the sky is the limit to how much you can make, but it is not uncommon at all for private practice dentists to be making $200,000-300,000 a year, especially if you move out of the city to a rural setting where you are the only close office. People will always say that “Physicians make more money than Dentists.” What they don’t realize is that this statement is a very one sided argument. Dentists certainly make as much as Family Practice, or Internal Medicine physicians, but most of the time, their salaries don’t rival that of the surgical specialties in medicine. But you have to take something else into consideration: hours worked, which I addressed in my #1 reason above. Sure, that private practice dentist is ‘only’ making a mere $200,000 a year, and his salary has nothing on the Orthopedic Surgeon who pulls in $500,000, but you have to remember: that dentist is likely working 30 hours a week, while the surgeon is working 60 hours a week. As great as it would be to make half a million a year, what good is it to have all that cash if you don’t even have the time to spend it? And speaking of time, this brings me to my third reason.
#3 Optional Residency: To become a Physician, one must go through 4 years of College, 4 years of Medical school, and anywhere from 3-7 years of Residency(depending on the specialty, another 1-3 years may be required for a ‘Fellowship’). We will use an Orthopedic Surgeon as an example again: he has to do a 5 year Residency, and if he wishes to specialize further into an area such as the Spine, then he must complete a Fellowship. So what’s the deal with this Residency thing anyways? Well, from what I’ve read, you pretty much become a slave to the hospital, working 100 hour work weeks and making a wopping $45,000 a year. Sounds fun, right? And this is something that you must do if you wish to be a Licensed Physician. With Dentists on the other hand, they have the option of doing a Residency after their 4 years of Dental school, or they can just begin to practice as a General Practitioner straight out of school. Several examples of dental residencies include Prosthodontics, Orthodontics, Endodontics, and Oral+Maxillofacial Surgery. I really like the fact that residency is optional, and it would be comforting knowing what you would be doing once you graduate school, which isn’t a given in Medical school. Let me explain in my next reason.
#4 Matching: If the horrible hours and slavery to the hospital wasn’t enough to scare me away from Medicine and towards Dentistry, but this whole idea of ‘not matching’ was in fact scary enough for me. You see, there is a test that you take at the end of your second year of Medical school called the USMLE(United States Medical Licensing Exam) Step 1, and this test basically decides your future. Unless you score high enough on it, you may not get the chance to match into your desired specialty in the Medical field. For example, I am highly interested in Ophthalmology(Eye Physicians who preform Surgery, not Optometrists), and I had my mind made up that I would try to get into Medical school so that I could become one. Then I learned through my reading online that it is a relatively competitive specialty to get into because it has predictable hours, and also very good pay. This means that if I wanted to even get a chance at getting an interview for a Residency program, I would have to score above the average on the USMLE Step 1, as well as several other factors that would determine if I was a competitive applicant to the program. In a way, this kind of ruined my ambitions for Medicine; I didn’t see the point of devoting 8 years of time to study (college + Medical school) if I wasn’t even assured that I would get to practice in my desired specialty. However, with Dentistry, there is no “matching” if you want to become a GP, the matching is again only for the optional residencies. This takes so much ambiguity out of the whole process, knowing what kind of work you will be doing when you graduate.
#5 Business Owner: Like I said, if you go into private practice, your life is pretty good. Not only are you making a nice upper-middle class salary and working 4 days a week, but you also get to ‘run’ the business. This means everything from choosing your employee's, to how you decorate your waiting room, to what kind of chairs you use in the operating room. I don’t know why, but it just seems to really cool to me to be the guy in charge of everything, and to have the power to just magically cancel a day if you’re sick or have an event to attend. This flexibility that you would never have as a Physician.
And that pretty much sums up the majority of my thoughts on this whole Dentistry vs. Medicine thing. Somewhere, there is a very good argument to why dentistry is better in regards to insurance companies and such, but I really don’t have the knowledge to understand what that all means yet. The only thing I know is that the Physician’s of today are less happy than they were in times past, and that the glory days of Medicine are gone.(Or so I have read) Oh, and the dentist I shadowed told me to go dental, but I have a slight feeling that he might be biased somehow……..
I do realize that the content in this post is not 100% accurate, but after talking to a dentist and reading many of the forums on this website, I do not believe anything I have stated here to be too out of line with reality. I would appreciate any comments, and if you are going to criticize, please do so with a constructive mindset. I'm 18, so give me a break. All the best to everyone who visits this thread! Cheers!
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