Chance for OMFS

[ortho_throwaway]

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[juniordentist]

When I first got into ortho, I was over the moon. It is such a competitive specialty and I couldn't believe I managed a spot.

I started asking around to find out the salary of ortho associates. My excitement faded. I assumed orthos all made a killing financially. Once I started getting numbers I realized that financially it was no where near what I thought it would be. I seriously considered dropping out.

I ended up accepting the offer. I didn't have much to lose in the sense that my job as a general dentist at the time was good (not great but good) but it was in a city that I didn't really love. So it wasn't like I was giving up much.

Still, it was incredibly hard. And I spent 3 years in residency wondering if I made the right call. It is a really tough 3 years. And there were MANY days where I was like "I could have worked as a general dentist and made lots of money today. Instead I had to deal with all this BS". It's a brutal 3 years, just going backwards in debt

I didn't go to an expensive ortho residency. But still, the 3 years of lost income has really set me back. I could have achieved a lot financially if I had put my head down and worked hard for 3 years instead.

I'm now in my 3rd year out of ortho residency. If I had a huge debt from residency I would absolutely regret the decision. Ortho as a procedure is great - but there is a lot of competition. It's incredibly frustrating because the job would honestly be the best if it was like a medical specialty and only specialists can do ortho. But it's not, so the job is what it is

The biggest question is how much will your debt be? How much are you making at your current job? How much are you sacrificing financially to take this offer?

 

[Allsmiles!]

Are there any new variables now that were not part of your consideration when you first started to pursue a residency in ortho? For example, the option of you and your wife taking over the practice? Or, everything you mentioned was previously considered?

 

[charlestweed]

A good friend, a GP whom I rent an office space from, told me one of his biggest regrets was that he did not specialize in ortho after dental school despite having good enough stats for it. I’ve worked for the corp for 20+ years and have met a lot of general dentists who have expressed similar regret as my friend's. They wished they could have my job. They couldn’t go back to school to specialize because they couldn’t just quit their job…..they have family and kids to support. It’s good that your wife is also a dentist. If your program is not too expensive, I think you should attend it. It’s just another 2-3 years. Most orthos that I’ve met are very happy with their jobs. I also know a few unhappy ones (some on this forum and on orthotown) but none of them want to go back to do general dentistry. There are plenty of job opportunities in big cities, if you don’t mind traveling to work at multiple offices and working for corp offices.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[Ivy.ch]

Post-match blues are a real thing. Look it up. What you’re feeling is okay.

 

[Allsmiles!]

Great questions. Truthfully, the option of us taking over was always there. However, I suppose I didn’t realize how great of an opportunity it was. The patients have a positive long-lasting relationship with her dad, its in an area where we want to live (one that is quite saturated and difficult to do a start-up), and it’s high producing. When I applied, I hadn’t realized these things because we were still military dentists without private practice experience.

With this said, my first reaction is to say that when you came to the conclusion to seek out and put in all the effort to secure a spot you did so with less/clearer emotion that you are currently feeling. So, perhaps the pending changes are getting the better of you and pushing you a bit to find reasons that the decision is not the right one. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s worth thinking about “stuff” but be careful that it doesn’t push you astray from a decision you made when you considered all the option when you were less emotionally affected. Also, consider there is truth to what @Ivy.ch mentioned. I’m assuming the spot you earned is a good program and reasonably priced for ortho standards. Unless there were substantial new variables that you now have to consider I lean toward going with the original plan…attend ortho residency.

 

[dentalinthemental]

A good friend, a GP whom I rent an office space from, told me one of his biggest regrets was that he did not specialize in ortho after dental school despite having good enough stats for it. I’ve worked for the corp for 20+ years and have met a lot of general dentists who have expressed similar regret as my friend's. They wished they could have my job. They couldn’t go back to school to specialize because they couldn’t just quit their job…..they have family and kids to support. It’s good that your wife is also a dentist. If your program is not too expensive, I think you should attend it. It’s just another 2-3 years. Most orthos that I’ve met are very happy with their jobs. I also know a few unhappy ones (some on this forum and on orthotown) but none of them want to go back to do general dentistry. There are plenty of job opportunities in big cities, if you don’t mind traveling to work at multiple offices and working for corp offices.

Good luck with your decision!

I really think it’s important to hear new grad ortho opinions and this take is just not the feedback I’m hearing from my colleagues who are finishing up residency or just now starting working as an Ortho. It’s the same with general dentistry— someone who started in the 90’s does not have the same experience as someone who will start working in 2027. Dentistry has changed, & Ortho has changed.

That being said, if you went through the trouble & the program is reasonably* priced, you should attend.
The nice thing about general dentistry is you can alter it to whatever niche you want to focus on. With Ortho, you are limited to brackets & invisalign. If that brings you fulfillment, do it and it will be very much worth it.
If not, don’t. Life’s way too short!

 

[charlestweed]

I really think it’s important to hear new grad ortho opinions and this take is just not the feedback I’m hearing from my colleagues who are finishing up residency or just now starting working as an Ortho. It’s the same with general dentistry— someone who started in the 90’s does not have the same experience as someone who will start working in 2027. Dentistry has changed, & Ortho has changed.

That being said, if you went through the trouble & the program is reasonably* priced, you should attend.
The nice thing about general dentistry is you can alter it to whatever niche you want to focus on. With Ortho, you are limited to brackets & invisalign. If that brings you fulfillment, do it and it will be very much worth it.
If not, don’t. Life’s way too short!

There are a lot of advantages that the OP has that I didn’t have. He will have zero debt. My wife and I had $450k student loans (combined). The OP’s wife will inherit her dad’s practice. We had to take out another $120k to purchase a perio practice for my wife. I used my wife’s office space to start my ortho business. I only spent $20k (15k for a pano/ceph unit + $5k for supplies and instruments). Like me, the OP can use his wife’s practice to start his ortho business and won’t have to borrow a dime. What if his wife’s GP practice does not have enough patients to keep 2 GPs busy? Wouldn’t it be nice to have the wife doing general dentistry and the husband doing ortho?

Like other health fields (medicine, general dentistry, optometry, pharmacy etc), ortho field is also on the decline. I don’t deny this fact. New grads will have much harder time to succeed than us, older orthos, because most of them will have much higher debt. To become successful in any field, one has to work hard and make sacrifice and ortho is no exception. I’ve practiced ortho for 20+ years. Until now, I still have to work P/T for the corp to supplement my income because my practice doesn’t have enough patients. Until now, I still have to work 2 Saturdays and 2 Sundays a month to attract more patients. I recently cut down days but I could only cut down the weekdays….I still have to open my office on the weekends to keep my patients happy. I still have to charge much lower fee in order to compete against corp offices. I still have to do many of the clinical work myself so I don’t have to hire a lot of staff (to keep the overhead low) etc.

One thing that hasn’t changed is ortho is still a great lifestyle specialty. You work less days and make the same as the GPs. Because of less physical labor, you can work longer….and maintain an active lifestyle. A lot of orthos who still work when they are in their 70s….it’s not because they need the money. Work gives satisfaction. Patients love to see you, instead of being afraid of you. What's not to like about this wonderful profession?

Last year, I had to drive 70 miles each way to help the corp office that had a hard time finding an ortho. I wouldn’t do that if my car didn’t have the autopilot feature. It took this office more than 8 months to finally find a permanent orthodontist. Before this, the company had tried 4-5 different orthos but none of the them wanted to work there…..either because they didn’t want to drive far or because the high patient volume was too much for these young inexperienced grads to handle. This shows that there are plenty of job opportunities here….and Socal is very saturated.

 

[dentalinthemental]

There are a lot of advantages that the OP has that I didn’t have. He will have zero debt. My wife and I had $450k student loans (combined). The OP’s wife will inherit her dad’s practice. We had to take out another $120k to purchase a perio practice for my wife. I used my wife’s office space to start my ortho business. I only spent $20k (15k for a pano/ceph unit + $5k for supplies and instruments). Like me, the OP can use his wife’s practice to start his ortho business and won’t have to borrow a dime. What if his wife’s GP practice does not have enough patients to keep 2 GPs busy? Wouldn’t it be nice to have the wife doing general dentistry and the husband doing ortho?

Like other health fields (medicine, general dentistry, optometry, pharmacy etc), ortho field is also on the decline. I don’t deny this fact. New grads will have much harder time to succeed than us, older orthos, because most of them will have much higher debt. To become successful in any field, one has to work hard and make sacrifice and ortho is no exception. I’ve practiced ortho for 20+ years. Until now, I still have to work P/T for the corp to supplement my income because my practice doesn’t have enough patients. Until now, I still have to work 2 Saturdays and 2 Sundays a month to attract more patients. I recently cut down days but I could only cut down the weekdays….I still have to open my office on the weekends to keep my patients happy. I still have to charge much lower fee in order to compete against corp offices. I still have to do many of the clinical work so I don’t have to hire a lot of staff (to keep the overhead low) etc.

One thing that hasn’t changed is ortho is still a great lifestyle specialty. You work less days and make the same as the GPs. Because of less physical labor, you can work longer….and keep your life active. A lot of orthos who still work when they are in their 70s….it’s not because they need the money. Work gives satisfaction. Patients love to see you, instead of being afraid of you. What's not to like about this wonderful profession?

Last year, I had to drive 70 miles each way to help the corp office that had a hard time finding an ortho. I wouldn’t do that if my car didn’t have the autopilot feature. It took this office more than 8 months to finally find a permanent orthodontist. Before this, the company had tried 4-5 different orthos but none of the them wanted to work there…..either because they didn’t want to drive far or because the high patient volume was too much for these young inexperienced grads to handle. This shows that there are plenty of job opportunities here….and Socal is very saturated.

I won’t argue with you on many of your points, the ergonomics & patient psychology with ortho is great, and I do believe it is more manageable to work far later in life as an orthodontist than a GP.

I think the point to note is you seem hard working & easy going, even decades into your career. Many students specializing in Ortho are blind to the realities of new grad Ortho life and assume they will easily be making a ton of money off the bat on a 8-5PM 4 day week in 1 office (and some specialties do offer this dynamic post-residency, like endo or OS). I think many new grad Orthos are facing the reality that they will need to hustle and work in multiple offices, and be willing to sometimes work weekends or longer hours to remain competitive, in spite of their efforts and years of additional education. For many, working 2 Saturdays & Sundays a month is a dealbreaker. You are willing and I applaud you for that. But it is a hard pill to swallow for new grads who are expecting a lavish easy Ortho life & have $500K debt (if lucky) to realize they will have to hustle after 3 years of extra coursework & opportunity cost.

With that being said, it’s still a great career and one worthwhile. OP will need to evaluate if they would be happier as an orthodontist or stick with general and look into the specifics of their finances. Depending on GP skillset & the soon-to-be acquired practice, it sometimes just doesn’t make financial sense to switch gears.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

I think I used to see specialization as a "grass is greener" mentality

I bet this applies to like 90% of predents and dental students.

Big Hoss

 

[Blueshirts]

I'm now in my 3rd year out of ortho residency. If I had a huge debt from residency I would absolutely regret the decision. Ortho as a procedure is great - but there is a lot of competition. It's incredibly frustrating because the job would honestly be the best if it was like a medical specialty and only specialists can do ortho. But it's not, so the job is what it is

The biggest question is how much will your debt be? How much are you making at your current job? How much are you sacrificing financially to take this offer?

What would you personally consider too much debt? As a rough figure how much on a per day are ortho associates making - i have heard ranges from 1200-2000 a day, as a GP associate that seems fairly low to me since as a new grad i'm almost averaging 1200 a day as it is

 

[charlestweed]

I won’t argue with you on many of your points, the ergonomics & patient psychology with ortho is great, and I do believe it is more manageable to work far later in life as an orthodontist than a GP.

I think the point to note is you seem hard working & easy going, even decades into your career. Many students specializing in Ortho are blind to the realities of new grad Ortho life and assume they will easily be making a ton of money off the bat on a 8-5PM 4 day week in 1 office (and some specialties do offer this dynamic post-residency, like endo or OS). I think many new grad Orthos are facing the reality that they will need to hustle and work in multiple offices, and be willing to sometimes work weekends or longer hours to remain competitive, in spite of their efforts and years of additional education. For many, working 2 Saturdays & Sundays a month is a dealbreaker. You are willing and I applaud you for that. But it is a hard pill to swallow for new grads who are expecting a lavish easy Ortho life & have $500K debt (if lucky) to realize they will have to hustle after 3 years of extra coursework & opportunity cost.

With that being said, it’s still a great career and one worthwhile. OP will need to evaluate if they would be happier as an orthodontist or stick with general and look into the specifics of their finances. Depending on GP skillset & the soon-to-be acquired practice, it sometimes just doesn’t make financial sense to switch gears.

I don't think the new grads have any other choice when they have a lot of student loans, which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, to pay back. Gotta find ways to make enough money to live and to support a family. I'd much rather deal with the stress at work than having to live with debt and being a slave to the banks and to the government.

 

[charlestweed]

What would you personally consider too much debt? As a rough figure how much on a per day are ortho associates making - i have heard ranges from 1200-2000 a day, as a GP associate that seems fairly low to me since as a new grad i'm almost averaging 1200 a day as it is

$1200/day is very good for recent grad GP.....and not bad for a new grad ortho with no experience. That's $300k a yr if you work 5 days/wk or $350k if you work 6 days/wk. I have heard that most new grad GPs make $150-160k. With $300-350k income, you can borrow $5-600k loan and should be able to pay it off in 3-4 yrs if you live on a $100k/yr budget....or if your spouse also works full time.

I graduated in 2001. My first job paid me $800 a day, which was $200 more than what I hoped to get. I was happy.....and rewarded myself a BMW .

 

[dentalinthemental]

I don't think the new grads have any other choice when they have a lot of student loans, which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, to pay back. Gotta find ways to make enough money to live and to support a family. I'd much rather deal with the stress at work than having to live with debt and being a slave to the banks and to the government.

Right, however, new dentists are not forced to take on a lot of student loans that many Ortho programs bring, and can instead spend that time building equity as a GP. This is the reality that many starry eye'd new grads interested in specializing do not see. It can be hard to see your friends who went on as GP's, 3 years out, as practice owners taking home 300K+ on a 4.5 day work-week with a huge dent in their student loans and money in the bank while your new grad Ortho self is making give or take 300K with more student loans, no saved up equity, and the need to work weekends or evenings, possibly for your career depending on the level of saturation in your market. However, that Ortho will have an easier ergonomic career and the possibility of easily out-earning the GP...but it may be delayed gratification that requires some serious grinding following residency.

As specialty programs increase their tuition costs (look up some private school Perio program tuition fees-- yowza) and dental schools increase their tuition costs, it becomes less black and white on whether specializing makes the most sense, especially given the changing market. However, Ortho is still an amazing and competitive profession for a reason, so it can very much be worth it.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

My ortho friend works part time at a DSO and part time at his own office. He’s been working for years to build up his private office. It’s not been nearly as easy as he thought it would be. He has to hustle from working a full day at the DSO over to his private office an hour away to see his patients in the evening. He does this a day or two a week. He’s definitely putting in a lot of hours.

Big Hoss

 

[charlestweed]

My ortho friend works part time at a DSO and part time at his own office. He’s been working for years to build up his private office. It’s not been nearly as easy as he thought it would be. He has to hustle from working a full day at the DSO over to his private office an hour away to see his patients in the evening. He does this a day or two a week. He’s definitely putting in a lot of hours.

Big Hoss

A lot of orthodontists in CA are doing this: working P/T for the corp and working P/T at their own office. This is actually a good thing. With the stable income flow from the associate job at the DSO, it’s much less stressful to build an office from scratch and run it….no need to take out a huge amount of loan….no need to borrow extra for working capital. Unlike general dentistry, which requires you to be physically present at your office 5 days/wk (to accommodate emergency and walk-in patients), orthodontists see patients by appointments only. Therefore, the orthodontists can book all of their patients on certain days of the week at their office….and use the other free days of the week to work for the corp offices.

When I started my first office, I didn’t need to quit my full time associate job at the corp. I used the free weekend days to see patients at my newly built office. Therefore, I didn’t have to give up the comfortable lifestyle that I’ve enjoyed since graduation. Many of my colleagues, who practice in states that didn’t have DSO offices, were under a lot financial stress when they started their own office. Some had to fly back and forth between their home state and state that has DSO offices.

 

[charlestweed]

Thank you all for your insight and advice. Truly a lot to think about. I'm quite sure I'll be moving forward with residency. Like previously mentioned, I'm in an extremely privileged position with no loans and the ability to attend residency at no direct cost (besides missed opportunity cost of GP income for 2-3 years). That being said, I'm left with a couple questions:

1.) Has anyone heard of someone dropping out of ortho residency?
2.) What about the possibility of deferring my acceptance/match for 1 year? Ever been done before?

1. No, I haven’t met one yet. But I know a few OS residents who quit in the middle of their trainings and applied for ortho. I know a few pedos who completed their training but then switched to ortho. And I know a lot of practicing GPs who quit their jobs (sold their practices), and went back to school for ortho.

2. I know one who got an acceptance to my ortho program, which was a non-match program at that time. But she still submitted the match list because she didn’t like my program. She thought it’s a strict program because many of the instructors had military background. She matched to another program and decided to drop my program. My program director had to find another person, who didn’t match anywhere, to replace her. If she didn’t do that, she would be my co-resident. She made a huge mistake. Everyone at my program was super friendly and it’s a 2-yr program that offered a MS degree. The one that she matched to was a 3yr program. She’s currently practicing in CA. Her practice is only a few miles from mine. We’re good friends. We share the same P/T assistant.

Sorry, I didn't quite answer your questions.

 

[CaliDDS1986]

I will describe my experience, and maybe it could help you some…

Long story short I practiced as a GP for a while. I fell in love with doing orthodontics, and even worked in a few ortho practices as an associate. I really wanted to go back to residency and got into a couple programs (a few of the higher priced ones). After exhaustive research, with orthodontists mostly telling me not to go back to residency in my particular situation, I backed out of my residency and the MATCH. All told it would have been over a $1.25 million opportunity cost to go back to residency. As for now I still work in a few orthodontic practices making the same as the other ortho associates that work there (you can do the math), and I still love it. Ironically, some of the ortho associates that look down on me for being a GP also look down on you if you are an orthodontist but go to one of the more expensive programs. Funny, but figured I would save myself the money and continue doing what I was doing for no added respect! Yes if I had gone back I could have owned a stand alone orthodontic practice, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to own a practice. I could always own a GP type office and do all the ortho that comes in the door and have associates do the GP work, but I digress. My career really has been a blessing and has not been the typical GP career arc. Not sure if this will help you or not, but as I was faced with a similar situation I took the path less traveled and been very happy with my decision. Also, no stress having student loans like some of the other associates I work with is great! Best of luck with your decision!

 

[gryffindor]

Some random thoughts. Most of them related to the fact that you won't have any debt once you finish.

I have never heard of anyone dropping out of an ortho residency. Dropping out of OMS, yes. Finishing another specialty and then doing ortho, yes. Since you won't have debt, you could drop out and no one would care. The program would distribute any cases you started to the other residents and that's it. I can't imagine they would let you defer because you need more time to decide. At least back in the day when spots were uber competitive, that would have been unheard of.

Do ortho if intellectually you want to think about moving teeth and jaws all the time. I love this specialty and am always thankful I got a spot. It's been 15 years and I have never wished I could go back to doing crowns and endo and extractions. I do miss busting calculus with a cavitron LOL. Doing debonds are sort of like that and more financially rewarding so I'm ok there too.

Don't do this residency if all you can think about is the opportunity cost of losing income for 3 years. I have never once thought about the income I might have lost while I was in residency. Because that's how badly I didn't want to have to be a GP anymore. There is a lot of money to still be made in ortho. Yeah maybe it's not as easy as before, but it's there. The hard cases become easy after enough time. We take on some crazy cases in my practice that others don't want to touch because they don't have the systems in place to make it easy. We re-treat enough "bad" ortho coming out of the chains and once-a-month "multi specialty" offices.

You have a few really huge benefits once you get out. One is setting up a practice within your wife's office so she can refer to you. You're saving on rent and staff overhead to get your feet off the ground, that's a huge leg up over the other offices. Another is that you can afford to be very picky in the jobs you take should you decide to look for one. A once-a-week type of job could be good for a few years just to see how an office runs and clinically how they treat their cases.

 

[charlestweed]

Here is a guy that has ortho and GP practices with his wife, who's a GP. They have 4-5 office locations and they hire associate GPs and orthodontist. It looked like the office where he made this youtube video was still under construction. He spent 12 years in school (5 yrs undergrad, 4 yrs DDS, and 3 yrs ortho). So he must have started working when he was 30-31 yo. He appeared to be in his early 40s at the time of making this video.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

They have 4-5 office locations and they hire associate GPs and orthodontist.

This is where they’re making their money.

Big Hoss

 

[charlestweed]

This is where they’re making their money.

Big Hoss

Yup. But they still have to work very hard to motivate the staff and their associates to produce for them…..to make sure their patients are happy with the treatments they provide. The orthodontist husband has to constantly market their practices. And making youtube videos, which takes a fair amount of time and effort, is one of many ways to make their offices known to the community. They were also willing to take financial risk to build those very nice and expensive offices…… and that’s their reward for taking such risk.

I can never do like what this orthodontist has done. He has achieved so much in short amount of time. He talks well. He is charming and is good looking. I had the cash to build nice big offices like him but I didn’t do it because I was afraid to take risk. Instead, I invested my money in real estate, which has yielded much lower profit but it is a safer route. Instead, I opened smaller low overhead satellite offices (by renting office spaces from GPs) and put in my own effort (instead of hiring associates) to run these offices.

 

[Undecided__]

Well.... I feel this thread took a turn for the worst in convincing me to do residency

Let me add some points:

• if the path to financial success as an orthodontist requires multiple practices to maintain a solid patient base, and/or commuting an hour in every direction on different days of the week, that is not very intriguing to me. I see myself as someone who desires simplicity: I'd like to have a practice with ideally 1 location
• I truly do not hate being a GP. If anything, I've been enjoying fillings/crowns with more experience. I love the idea of orthodontics, and think it's fascinating, but without having actually *done* any ortho, I fear about the idea of ONLY doing it without having tried it physically
• I am quite limited in the geographic area where I want to establish a practice, so I worry about my ability to associate with (and hopefully take over) a retiring orthodontist
• My father-in-law's practice collects over 1.5mm+ annually. I suppose I didn't realize how successful this was, and fear I'm missing out on an opportunity by going to ortho residency. My wife is working with him, but she wants to work ~2 days/week when we start having kids. Wouldn't it be better for us to tackle this practice together? We enjoy working together, and if anything I also fear the 'loneliness' of running an ortho practice as a solo doc. I also fear of our family having to worry about owning/operating 2 different practices. We've seen how stressful staffing and other business problems can be, and it just seems simpler to run and manage one "family business"

It's up to you to decide what's most important. I had a schoolmate who wanted to do OMFS(had the grades, CBSE score, everything). He backed out because he wife became a dental hygienist, and she was going to work with him when they bought a practice. He's going to buy a practice from an older guy. He decided to stay a general dentist and receive more training in surgical procedures. However, it was more important for him and his wife to work together than to be an OS.

If I were in your shoes, I would do the residency. If you don't like it, just do general, but you may never have another chance to become an orthodontist again. I met a guy who's an ortho resident. He only applied because he was #1 in his class, but he liked general. Now, that he's in residency, he said he would never go back to general. Seems to me that he has grown to like ortho so much more.

 

[Pablo Sanchez]

Well.... I feel this thread took a turn for the worst in convincing me to do residency

Let me add some points:

• if the path to financial success as an orthodontist requires multiple practices to maintain a solid patient base, and/or commuting an hour in every direction on different days of the week, that is not very intriguing to me. I see myself as someone who desires simplicity: I'd like to have a practice with ideally 1 location
• I truly do not hate being a GP. If anything, I've been enjoying fillings/crowns with more experience. I love the idea of orthodontics, and think it's fascinating, but without having actually *done* any ortho, I fear about the idea of ONLY doing it without having tried it physically
• I am quite limited in the geographic area where I want to establish a practice, so I worry about my ability to associate with (and hopefully take over) a retiring orthodontist
• My father-in-law's practice collects over 1.5mm+ annually. I suppose I didn't realize how successful this was, and fear I'm missing out on an opportunity by going to ortho residency. My wife is working with him, but she wants to work ~2 days/week when we start having kids. Wouldn't it be better for us to tackle this practice together? We enjoy working together, and if anything I also fear the 'loneliness' of running an ortho practice as a solo doc. I also fear of our family having to worry about owning/operating 2 different practices. We've seen how stressful staffing and other business problems can be, and it just seems simpler to run and manage one "family business"

To me, it sounds like you got this opportunity to do ortho, but realized it might not be what you want to do. I mean it’s to the point that you’re even adding details on why being a GP makes the most sense to you in effort to see if it changes anybody’s mind.

The fact of the matter is you cannot go wrong. You have two very nice opportunities in front of you. It can be stressful making such a major decision, but life is going to work out either way. You’ll find success in either option. There is more to life than career, and I think you’re seeing that come into your decision making. That’s not a bad thing.

The truth is that we are all lucky here to be able to work in the field we work in. The income is good. The flexibility is good. People tend to appreciate us. We are helping others. There’s flexibility to own your own business. This applies to both general dentistry and orthodontics.

I believe you’ve internally made your decision already. Just listen to your gut and don’t look back. You’ll have a good life either way! Just my two cents.

 

[OrphanageCaretaker]

Did you get into Georgia by any chance?

 

[ortho07]

I have not posted on these message boards for 15 years and I just logged into my account to tell you that if you do not go to ortho residency it will be the biggest regret you will ever have. For me completing my orthodontic residency was the best career decision I ever made. Here are a few points to consider

• If you specialize you can still work with your wife in your father in laws office if you really want to be their in house Orthodontist
• When you graduate you can still work as a GP if your state allows it and you really hate ortho. But I promise once you really get into the golden part of your career you will love it
• If your wife takes over her fathers practice I would open a separate ortho office in the same town and you are guaranteed cases from day 1 from your wifes/father in laws office. You will get 5-10 new patient consultations a month just from this office alone. This will allow you to build your patient base immediately and get your office going. This will provide you with a baseline and you will only build from there.
• If my wife was a GP in the same town I would not hesitate to open an separate office within a reasonably close proximity. As long as there is not a direct ortho competitor very close to her or you
• Every GP I have ever met always complements me on my "quality of life". I work 9-5:30 4 days a week and probably make twice the amount of take home my GP friends make
• I have been an orthodontist for 15 years and I still routinely treat easy mild class I cases. These people will still find you through word of mouth even if they do not get directly referred from a GP office
• Remember - successful orthodontists making lots of money do not come on SDN and complain. They keep their heads down and keep quiet and keep going.
• If you were to make the same amount of money as an orthodontist working 2 clinical days per week VS a GP working 4-5 days a week why on earth would you think twice about this? Work less and make more and dont feel guilty about it

The problem with you right now is "you don't know what you don't know". Do not be a fool and miss this opportunity