Another dents vs. Med question...

[surgeon_hopeful]

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Hey,

I have another dentistry vs. medicine question:

Which one involves more hands on work?

By hands on, I mean doing work with hands...touching patients doesn't count (thats just creepy). For example, doing wax ups of teeth counts, but escorting a patient to the chair doesn't.

Now obviously, since meds has more surgical positions, it would technically be so, so lets exclude Oral Surgery and the surgical specialties. I'm particularly interested in either general dentistry, perio or neurology, so which one would be more hands on in terms of:

General vs. Neurology?
perio vs. Neurology?

thanks!

 

[Law2Doc]

Hey,

I have another dentistry vs. medicine question:

Which one involves more hands on work?

By hands on, I mean doing work with hands...touching patients doesn't count (thats just creepy). For example, doing wax ups of teeth counts, but escorting a patient to the chair doesn't.

Now obviously, since meds has more surgical positions, it would technically be so, so lets exclude Oral Surgery and the surgical specialties. I'm particularly interested in either general dentistry, perio or neurology, so which one would be more hands on in terms of:

General vs. Neurology?
perio vs. Neurology?

thanks!

I don't get your question. There are many fields of medicine which are totally hands on in terms of invasiveness. Surgery, OB, ortho, anything procedural in IM, interventional radiology... the list is endless. And all fields of medicine involve physical examination, which involves looking in eyes, ears, orifices, listening to heart, lungs, palpating, percussing. So it depends if you consider physical exams hands on. If so, all of medicine is going to be more hands on than dentistry, because except on "House", it is not usually possible to diagnose a patient without touching them. If you don't count the physical exam as hands-on though, then neurology probably is one field which doesn't fit your definiton of being particularly hands on, because you are mostly taking histories, physicals and running patients through tests.

But your question is a silly one -- the job function is totally different. You really should shadow a dentist and a neurologist, and perhaps other specialists and see which you like better. Deciding you want something hands on, but then selecting a less hands on area of medicine is kind of strange.

 

[MadameLULU]

Closing since there is a duplicate thread in Dental. Please go there for further discussion.