are there any dentists that went back to med school? how was the transition?

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I have friends who are in dental school atm, and from what they've described to me, it sounds like they're going through the same BS that we are.

So, barring any extreme circumstances (ie. mutilated a patient's mouth while doing a simple extraction), I doubt any dentist would want to change careers .. let alone return to hell - I mean.. medical school.
 
I recently had a talk with an OMFS and apparently the route for that is 4 years dental school and then 3rd and 4th year med school for DDS + MD and then the residency. He got in the game right as this route became available, and doesn't regret going straight DDS at all. Other than that case of a dentist pursuing the double degree for oral surgery, I can't imagine why a dentist would go back to medical school. (What do you mean by "back" anyway? Like the did med school then switched to dental and then switched back? 😕 Just seems like bad wording to me...)
 
Dentistry is a pretty good gig. General dentistry is almost as good as dermatology without the extreme competitiveness. Benefits are even better if you go into a dental specialty (...orthodontics). Unless you have a problem with putting your hands inside people's mouths, then I don't think you would want to switch from DS to MS.

...I, however, do have a problem with probing people's mouths as a career, hence my pre-med status.
 
muhali3 said:
Dentistry is a pretty good gig. General dentistry is almost as good as dermatology without the extreme competitiveness. Benefits are even better if you go into a dental specialty (...orthodontics). Unless you have a problem with putting your hands inside people's mouths, then I don't think you would want to switch from DS to MS.

...I, however, do have a problem with probing people's mouths as a career, hence my pre-med status.
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Agree on all counts, especially this 👍
 
Because Dermatologists spend 8 hours a day bent over doing root canals or implants? Dentistry is in all honesty a surgical field and most dentists do 36 hour weeks because their backs would arguably start protruding out of their backs. Derma's relatively just sit down look at your skin and prescribe you some meds. This is also blatantly forgetting that 75% of USMD students get into derma* while only the top 1-5% of dental students get into any of the residencies.
However after you've gotten a DDS/ DMD I don't see the point in going back and getting an MD/DO unless you live in NYC or Boston and can't make more then 80k a year ( due to intense over saturation). Dental school is also majorly more expensive then medical school and many dentists are piled in debt so going back to medical school for more debt is stupid and for most impractical.
Needless to say in my opinion dentistry isn't a great gig and that very few dents actually go back to medical school.
*http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin/resweb.nsf/L/91E21203CA2CF2F386256F8F00721E39?OpenDocument
 
serenade said:
while only the top 1-5% of dental students get into any of the residencies.
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I would say this is more because you don't need to do a residency at all in dentistry. If you look at how many applied for a residency vs how many were accepted for a residency, it is more like 65%. But still, this seems low.
 
serenade said:
Because Dermatologists spend 8 hours a day bent over doing root canals or implants? Dentistry is in all honesty a surgical field and most dentists do 36 hour weeks because their backs would arguably start protruding out of their backs. Derma's relatively just sit down look at your skin and prescribe you some meds. This is also blatantly forgetting that 75% of USMD students get into derma* while only the top 1-5% of dental students get into any of the residencies.
However after you've gotten a DDS/ DMD I don't see the point in going back and getting an MD/DO unless you live in NYC or Boston and can't make more then 80k a year ( due to intense over saturation). Dental school is also majorly more expensive then medical school and many dentists are piled in debt so going back to medical school for more debt is stupid and for most impractical.
Needless to say in my opinion dentistry isn't a great gig and that very few dents actually go back to medical school.
*http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin/resweb.nsf/L/91E21203CA2CF2F386256F8F00721E39?OpenDocument
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Obviously the work itself is different. Saying dentists only work 36 hrs/wk because of excessive back pain is kind of ridiculous when you consider that MD surgeons can often work double those hours, and there doesn't seem to be a back pain epidemic among surgeons in medicine. Every specialty has its pros and cons, but that isn't what I'm comparing.

From a purely financial standpoint, if I had to choose between dentistry and medicine, I would choose dentistry because:

1) You are allowed to open up a practice after only 4 yrs of school. (less opportunity cost of time)
2) As a general dentist, the $/hr income is comparable to top paying medical specialties, without being as competitive.
3) You are your own boss; you determine your hours, how much you will charge, and income is based on # of procedures you can perform per day.

However, I am not choosing my career from a purely financial standpoint, because I would be miserable doing something I didn't have any passion for.

Also, when considering the 70%* match rate for dermatology, you must realize that only the top students will apply to dermatology in the first place. So what that statistic really says is that only 70% of these "top" students will match into derm. (*http://www.nrmp.org/data/chartingoutcomes2009v3.pdf , page 9 , page 36)

And when you compare dermatology to orthodontics, only (262/485) = 54% of dental students matched into ortho. http://www.natmatch.com/dentres/aplstats.htm
 
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291021.htm
Dentists = surgery
comparing it to Psychiatry which has a similar 40 hour week makes more per hour and annually. Even IM makes more per hour then dentistry. The thing is dentistry no matter where you go you'll be bending over and harming your back. In medicine you can choose to not bend over:meanie:.
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291066.htm
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291063.htm

75% > 54%. Not to mention this is talking arbitrarily derma. I could easy use ophthalmology which boasts a better lifestyle then dentists and make much more and 91% of seniors match. Dentistry only has ortho, medicine has tons more life style residencies which make more and are so much more monetarily rewarding.
http://residency.wustl.edu/medadmin/resweb.nsf/L/51675E1C167DF70186256F8F0073A46C?OpenDocument

I just personally think this misconception that dentistry is better money wise and lifestyle wise needs to end.
 
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PremedGunner said:
you're trivializing a noble profession. i disagree!
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Maybe I shouldn't have phrased it like that. It is a noble profession, just not that one I'm suited for. The same goes for podiatry, pharmacy, physical therapy, being a janitor, etc.
 
muhali3 said:
Maybe I shouldn't have phrased it like that. It is a noble profession, just not that one I'm suited for. The same goes for podiatry, pharmacy, physical therapy, being a janitor, etc.
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But you're cool with sticking your hands in people's rectums, abdominal cavities, and vaginas?
 
DrBowtie said:
But you're cool with sticking your hands in people's rectums, abdominal cavities, and vaginas?
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I'm not cool with it, but I'm willing to do it if that's what is needed to get into my specialty of interest. And my specialty of interest is not OB/GYN, general surgery, gastroenterology, or urology.
 
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