Dark side of dentistry?

[boater]

Hello! I'm considering a career change from medicine, well medical school actually, to dentistry because I have realized that I was very naive about medicine. I began during my first year of med school to realize that medicine has a "dark side", and you can read more about it in this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195799&page=1&pp=25

Now I know that there is no perfect job...but from someone who has never shadowed a dentist or has investigated it THAT closely, dentistry seems pretty damn good. Good hours, autonomy, respect, and lots of business opportunity if you're good at that side of it. I know some of the drawbacks can be back pain, grumpy patients, and areas saturated with dentists...but I was wondering if there was something more that I don't know about. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...especially about area saturation because I'm from California and would like to live there. Thanks a lot!

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[Dr. Pedo]

Hello! I'm considering a career change from medicine, well medical school actually, to dentistry because I have realized that I was very naive about medicine. I began during my first year of med school to realize that medicine has a "dark side", and you can read more about it in this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195799&page=1&pp=25

Now I know that there is no perfect job...but from someone who has never shadowed a dentist or has investigated it THAT closely, dentistry seems pretty damn good. Good hours, autonomy, respect, and lots of business opportunity if you're good at that side of it. I know some of the drawbacks can be back pain, grumpy patients, and areas saturated with dentists...but I was wondering if there was something more that I don't know about. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...especially about area saturation because I'm from California and would like to live there. Thanks a lot!

Boater, shadow a dentist for a good while.

 

[speedy3816]

Hello! I'm considering a career change from medicine, well medical school actually, to dentistry because I have realized that I was very naive about medicine. I began during my first year of med school to realize that medicine has a "dark side", and you can read more about it in this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195799&page=1&pp=25

Now I know that there is no perfect job...but from someone who has never shadowed a dentist or has investigated it THAT closely, dentistry seems pretty damn good. Good hours, autonomy, respect, and lots of business opportunity if you're good at that side of it. I know some of the drawbacks can be back pain, grumpy patients, and areas saturated with dentists...but I was wondering if there was something more that I don't know about. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...especially about area saturation because I'm from California and would like to live there. Thanks a lot!

yea, if you're considering dentistry as a career, do the research (i.e. talk to dentists, shadow dentists, browse the SDN forums ), however, let me add one thing: don't switch to dentistry only because you don't want to do medicine! you could end up in the same position you're in now , what if something not even in the health professions catches your eye, you never know. do some research... all i can say

speedy

 

[SuperTrooper]

Hello! I'm considering a career change from medicine, well medical school actually, to dentistry because I have realized that I was very naive about medicine. I began during my first year of med school to realize that medicine has a "dark side", and you can read more about it in this thread:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=195799&page=1&pp=25

Um... that's a year-old, thirty page thread. And you just joined in May 2006? Did you even contribute to that thread? Why don't you just tell us what you don't like about medicine?

Anyhow, the advice given by speedy was good: don't go into dentistry cause you hate medicine.

 

[L8DYV]

in addition to shadowing a dentist....ask yourself the questions:

what your core values?
your career goals?
life long goals?
how will those career goals fit in with your core values and life long goals?

i'm sure that by asking and answering those questions to yourself, you can make your own decision to be pointed in the right career path--afterall, you should know yourself the best!

 

[v&andy_yankee]

Reading that medicine thread is depressing (because I feel sorry for the medical students/residents)...but also uplifting (to me, at least, thank goodness I didn't go that route!)

But the problems echoed in that thread is something I've heard from numerous medical students, residents...hell, even my own family doctor. Medicine is demanding, time-wise and effort-wise, and it doesn't pay THAT well. When I was applying to denta school a few years ago, all my medical student friends (who were in their 3/4 years and therefore no longer bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 1st years) kept on telling me that I was the "smart one" for choosing the dental route. A few of them even said that if they could go back in time, they would take my route and do dentistry (either that, or pharmacy!)

Too many people are fooled into thinking that medicine is very prestigious and earns big $$$, thanks to all those movies and TV shows that glorify the life of a surgeon or ER doctor (in fact, keep at it Hollywood--keep on glorifying medicine, otherwise very few people will be going that route! Don't start glorifying dentists anytime soon, because we don't want that field/secret to become oversaturated). What the movies don't show are the years of hard work leading up to medical school, the 4 years of even harder work in medical school, and then the 3+ years of hell in residency. What they also don't show is how most medical students start school thinking they want to be a surgeon and save lives...only by the time 4th year rolls around, everyone is competing to get into dermatology or radiology (not for the live-saving skills, but rather the good pay and hours!).

 

[QCkid]

Reading that medicine thread is depressing (because I feel sorry for the medical students/residents)...but also uplifting (to me, at least, thank goodness I didn't go that route!)

But the problems echoed in that thread is something I've heard from numerous medical students, residents...hell, even my own family doctor. Medicine is demanding, time-wise and effort-wise, and it doesn't pay THAT well. When I was applying to denta school a few years ago, all my medical student friends (who were in their 3/4 years and therefore no longer bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 1st years) kept on telling me that I was the "smart one" for choosing the dental route. A few of them even said that if they could go back in time, they would take my route and do dentistry (either that, or pharmacy!)

Too many people are fooled into thinking that medicine is very prestigious and earns big $$$, thanks to all those movies and TV shows that glorify the life of a surgeon or ER doctor (in fact, keep at it Hollywood--keep on glorifying medicine, otherwise very few people will be going that route! Don't start glorifying dentists anytime soon, because we don't want that field/secret to become oversaturated). What the movies don't show are the years of hard work leading up to medical school, the 4 years of even harder work in medical school, and then the 3+ years of hell in residency. What they also don't show is how most medical students start school thinking they want to be a surgeon and save lives...only by the time 4th year rolls around, everyone is competing to get into dermatology or radiology (not for the live-saving skills, but rather the good pay and hours!).

If its the difficulty of med school that’s the problem, I would say stay there because dental school is the same if not harder. If its the residency and life after residency that has you bothered then maybe looking into dentistry might not be a bad idea. When I was a premed, I had my heart set on medicine too. No matter how I added it up though, the benefits were outweighed by the costs. You shouldn't have to sacrifice everything for a career, but that’s pretty much what happens with medicine. Some of the things that changed my mind about medicine:

Nearly ever Doc that I talked with was unhappy. I worked at IBM and after 9/11 they had cut my position and folded me into another job with about half the pay (which is what started this whole thing. But that’s a whole different thread) . As part of the job I had a lot of accounts with medical offices. When talking with the Dr's they'd practically regurgitate their life story after I told them that I was going into medicine. I must have heard from over a hundred of them. In all, I think that maybe 3 of them told me they were happy and would do it over again. One was a dermatologist, one was an orthopedic surgeon and one was a family practitioner. I remember talking with a radiologist who had two sons. He tried to convince both of them to go into dentistry. One did and the other went into medicine. He told me that the one in medicine now wished he would have gone with dentistry.

My brother in-law is a malpractice attorney who defends Docs. He says nearly every physician will be sued in their lives and most will be sued multiple times. He said that dentists rarely get sued and that when they do they rarely loose in court. He also said that pay outs were much smaller in dentistry.

I could go on and on about this stuff. My brother was a sales rep to surgeons. He sold them prosthetic devices and implants. He really had a lot of interesting things to say about medicine too. Things that made him want to switch careers.

Finally, when you look at the time in residency and realize that with most of the specialties the work load barely drops off after residency, that you work more to make less then you would have 20 yrs ago, that the way you practice is dictated to you by an insurance company and that your getting sued all the time; it almost seemed like you had to lack intelligence to go into medicine. I'm sorry, I don't me to offend anyone, but this was really how I felt. In fact, I was quite despondent over the whole thing since medicine is what I wanted and I hadn't really considered anything else at that time. Its a shame whats happened to medicine, it really is, and its not fair. However, I could not ignore the realities. I'm sure their are plenty of bright eyed and bushy tailed med students and wannabe med students, but at the end of the day, if their are 1000 unhappy physicians that bitch and moan about medicine and 2 who tell you that they would do it over again, you have to realize that statistically you're unlikely to buck the trend.

 

[diagnodent]

Darkside of dentistry. It all depends on how you look at it. Most students graduate with 150-300k in debt from school. Then if they want their own practice it usually costs 300k-800k. Then you own a business and have to manage it successfully. If you didn't collect enough that month you are screwed with all your loans. Thats the darkside of dentistry and it doesn't happen that often. I'm 5 years out with my own practice, 29, and earned 130k in the first five months of this year. Now I'm not saying everyone will do that but being a dentist as long as you have business sense is easy. Dentistry isn't that tough. Good dentists usually aren't the smartest they are the ones with average hand skills, good people skills and some business skill.

My next door neighbor is a 50+ yo family physician and hates it. He wishes he would have been a dentist.

 

[Dr. Pedo]

Darkside of dentistry. It all depends on how you look at it. Most students graduate with 150-300k in debt from school. Then if they want their own practice it usually costs 300k-800k. Then you own a business and have to manage it successfully. If you didn't collect enough that month you are screwed with all your loans. Thats the darkside of dentistry and it doesn't happen that often. I'm 5 years out with my own practice, 29, and earned 130k in the first five months of this year. Now I'm not saying everyone will do that but being a dentist as long as you have business sense is easy. Dentistry isn't that tough. Good dentists usually aren't the smartest they are the ones with average hand skills, good people skills and some business skill.

My next door neighbor is a 50+ yo family physician and hates it. He wishes he would have been a dentist.

Could not have said it better!

 

[boater]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Regarding some of the things that were said, I'm definitely not going to drop out of med school for dental school just cos I don't like medicine. It's such a diverse field...and I've only been exposed to a few of its aspects, so I can't really say whether I hate it or love it. However, during my first year of medical school I realized that I only had a very general idea of why I wanted to be a doctor: I enjoyed studying biology and wanted to apply it to help people. The event that had inspired me to want to help people was a trip to a rural area of Peru, where I saw how tough life is for a lot of people and just how fortunate I have been in life. One of the friends that I made there had a father who was paralyzed, and they asked me, a high school kid, to help them cos they were so desperate. I think that because of the nature of my friend's father's condition, I decided to go into medicine and didn't think about other ways to help people. So I went to medical school without thinking about being a physician as a job, but more as "helping people," which I thought was very stupid of me but apparently a lot of people do this. But as I was more exposed to doctors and residents, I began to realize that the job of being a physician was often so demanding and cumbersome (being on call, dealing with paperwork, health insurance companies, decreasing compensation), that it was difficult for physicians to be satisfied with medicine as a job, which it inevitably becomes. Now, it's not like I'm going to just throw away the effort, time, and money it took for me to be at the end of my first year of medical school cos being a physician isn't the absolute greatest job in the world. I realize that if I stay in medicine I won't be as idealistic as I am now, but there's definitely satisfaction to be found in being a physician. I know a surgery resident who works 80 hrs a week (and works hard during those 80 hrs), and can't spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. But he likes what he does most of the time and has the toughness to get through the times he doesn't like it. And he says what helps keep him going are his Christian faith, the times when a patient or family is really grateful, and the feeling he gets when he sees someone who's alive because he helped them. And that's the kind of doctor that I'd want helping someone in my family if they were sick, and that's the doctor that I'd aspire to become. And after residency, which I used to think was a form of torture but now think of as a time to become expert at helping people (see? it's all about perspective), an attending has a lot more flexibility in their work hours.

From what I've been able to learn about dentistry from here and from family and friends, it's a great career where you can help people...without a lot of the drawbacks of medicine. It's something that I hadn't looked into, and I don't even know if a dental school would accept an applicant who had dropped out of med school to become dentist. Even if they did, I'd have to do a LOT of soul-searching to attempt the switch. However, I'm just asking a few questions on SDN to do what I should've done before coming to med school - looking into other health care careers. Thanks for your help!

 

[speedy3816]

Finally, when you look at the time in residency and realize that with most of the specialties the work load barely drops off after residency, that you work more to make less then you would have 20 yrs ago, that the way you practice is dictated to you by an insurance company and that your getting sued all the time; it almost seemed like you had to lack intelligence to go into medicine. I'm sorry, I don't me to offend anyone, but this was really how I felt. In fact, I was quite despondent over the whole thing since medicine is what I wanted and I hadn't really considered anything else at that time. Its a shame whats happened to medicine, it really is, and its not fair. However, I could not ignore the realities. I'm sure their are plenty of bright eyed and bushy tailed med students and wannabe med students, but at the end of the day, if their are 1000 unhappy physicians that bitch and moan about medicine and 2 who tell you that they would do it over again, you have to realize that statistically you're unlikely to buck the trend.

excellent point(s) made

 

[speedy3816]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Regarding some of the things that were said, I'm definitely not going to drop out of med school for dental school just cos I don't like medicine. It's such a diverse field...and I've only been exposed to a few of its aspects, so I can't really say whether I hate it or love it. However, during my first year of medical school I realized that I only had a very general idea of why I wanted to be a doctor: I enjoyed studying biology and wanted to apply it to help people. The event that had inspired me to want to help people was a trip to a rural area of Peru, where I saw how tough life is for a lot of people and just how fortunate I have been in life. One of the friends that I made there had a father who was paralyzed, and they asked me, a high school kid, to help them cos they were so desperate. I think that because of the nature of my friend's father's condition, I decided to go into medicine and didn't think about other ways to help people. So I went to medical school without thinking about being a physician as a job, but more as "helping people," which I thought was very stupid of me but apparently a lot of people do this. But as I was more exposed to doctors and residents, I began to realize that the job of being a physician was often so demanding and cumbersome (being on call, dealing with paperwork, health insurance companies, decreasing compensation), that it was difficult for physicians to be satisfied with medicine as a job, which it inevitably becomes. Now, it's not like I'm going to just throw away the effort, time, and money it took for me to be at the end of my first year of medical school cos being a physician isn't the absolute greatest job in the world. I realize that if I stay in medicine I won't be as idealistic as I am now, but there's definitely satisfaction to be found in being a physician. I know a surgery resident who works 80 hrs a week (and works hard during those 80 hrs), and can't spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. But he likes what he does most of the time and has the toughness to get through the times he doesn't like it. And he says what helps keep him going are his Christian faith, the times when a patient or family is really grateful, and the feeling he gets when he sees someone who's alive because he helped them. And that's the kind of doctor that I'd want helping someone in my family if they were sick, and that's the doctor that I'd aspire to become. And after residency, which I used to think was a form of torture but now think of as a time to become expert at helping people (see? it's all about perspective), an attending has a lot more flexibility in their work hours.

From what I've been able to learn about dentistry from here and from family and friends, it's a great career where you can help people...without a lot of the drawbacks of medicine. It's something that I hadn't looked into, and I don't even know if a dental school would accept an applicant who had dropped out of med school to become dentist. Even if they did, I'd have to do a LOT of soul-searching to attempt the switch. However, I'm just asking a few questions on SDN to do what I should've done before coming to med school - looking into other health care careers. Thanks for your help!

Hey, it's definately possible to switch... just make sure you do some shadowing, and spend some time in a dental office. You will know (at least have a pretty good idea) if dentistry is for you. For me, it was probably the most significant factor in my decision to pursue dentistry.

 

[SuperTrooper]

... if their are 1000 unhappy physicians that bitch and moan about medicine and 2 who tell you that they would do it over again, you have to realize that statistically you're unlikely to buck the trend.

I think this thread may be exaggerating the unhappiness of physicians. Being a physician is a great job, and it pays great, no matter what anybody says. You might hear a lot of physicians complaining - because yes, they do work harder than a lot of other professions. But these same people have never had any other job, so they've got nothing to compare it to. Everybody complains about their job. I've also heard some of my med school friends say they wish they had gone into dentistry; but what the hell do they know about dentistry?!! How can they make a comment like that. I think it may be a situation of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." And I think that you hear more physicians putting down their profession than praising it because angry people tend to be more vocal.

As an aside: I agree that a lot of medical students get a little jaded about medicine when they see it's not as glamourous as it seems on tv. However, if you go into medicine with a level-headed view of what to expect, I think you'll be fine.

 

[Jack Worthing]

I'm a bit surprised but I guess comforted too that no one replied saying that dental school takes away your life too, to a similar degree that med school does. I'm surprised because it's usually a common experience at my school that dental school can be quite time-consuming, but I guess it's good we dentites aren't complaining too much and are sucking it up.

Three words: LATE-NIGHT LABWORK

Well, at least we don't have to be "on-call" in our third and fourth year of dental school, while 3rd year med students do depending on their clerkship.

 

[BerkeleyMD]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Regarding some of the things that were said, I'm definitely not going to drop out of med school for dental school just cos I don't like medicine. It's such a diverse field...and I've only been exposed to a few of its aspects, so I can't really say whether I hate it or love it. However, during my first year of medical school I realized that I only had a very general idea of why I wanted to be a doctor: I enjoyed studying biology and wanted to apply it to help people. The event that had inspired me to want to help people was a trip to a rural area of Peru, where I saw how tough life is for a lot of people and just how fortunate I have been in life. One of the friends that I made there had a father who was paralyzed, and they asked me, a high school kid, to help them cos they were so desperate. I think that because of the nature of my friend's father's condition, I decided to go into medicine and didn't think about other ways to help people. So I went to medical school without thinking about being a physician as a job, but more as "helping people," which I thought was very stupid of me but apparently a lot of people do this. But as I was more exposed to doctors and residents, I began to realize that the job of being a physician was often so demanding and cumbersome (being on call, dealing with paperwork, health insurance companies, decreasing compensation), that it was difficult for physicians to be satisfied with medicine as a job, which it inevitably becomes. Now, it's not like I'm going to just throw away the effort, time, and money it took for me to be at the end of my first year of medical school cos being a physician isn't the absolute greatest job in the world. I realize that if I stay in medicine I won't be as idealistic as I am now, but there's definitely satisfaction to be found in being a physician. I know a surgery resident who works 80 hrs a week (and works hard during those 80 hrs), and can't spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. But he likes what he does most of the time and has the toughness to get through the times he doesn't like it. And he says what helps keep him going are his Christian faith, the times when a patient or family is really grateful, and the feeling he gets when he sees someone who's alive because he helped them. And that's the kind of doctor that I'd want helping someone in my family if they were sick, and that's the doctor that I'd aspire to become. And after residency, which I used to think was a form of torture but now think of as a time to become expert at helping people (see? it's all about perspective), an attending has a lot more flexibility in their work hours.

From what I've been able to learn about dentistry from here and from family and friends, it's a great career where you can help people...without a lot of the drawbacks of medicine. It's something that I hadn't looked into, and I don't even know if a dental school would accept an applicant who had dropped out of med school to become dentist. Even if they did, I'd have to do a LOT of soul-searching to attempt the switch. However, I'm just asking a few questions on SDN to do what I should've done before coming to med school - looking into other health care careers. Thanks for your help!

It sounds like you would really enjoy being a physician, and you should stick with it.

Medicine is a really broad field and you can make whatever you want of it. Since I haven't started med school yet, I can only discuss with you examples of my previous experiences. I did a GI intership this past year, and my PI worked a standard 9-5 M-F shift and still had time to write research articles, give lectures and hold luncheons. He was totally happy, lived in a big house and drove nice cars. The key to working in medicine is that pharmaceutical companies really go after doc's to start clinical trials. One on-going 40-week trial compensated my doc $20k per patient and there were 30+ patients in the study... not bad for someone with with a 350K salary and a small research staff. Doctor's are still making good money, and are not being sued as much as everyone thinks. There are ton's of guidelines set forth to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits (consent forms, insurance...). Also there are malpractice caps set in place to prevent extremely high lawsuits when the doctor is negligent.

Dentistry is a great profession, and is known for its "lifestyle" but MD's aren't busting their asses for nothing. Given the competiveness of getting into cosmetic denistry and orthodontics, there are way more ways to live comfortably ($$) in medicine than dentistry (if that is all you are looking for). Here is a link of average physician salaries: http://www.alliedphysicians.com/salary-surveys/physicians/
(but, I dunno, it could be a fake portrayal of how Hollywood wants us to view doctors )

Most physicians go into medicine to help people, and for the most part, that's my primary reason for entering the field as well. But, when I hear that "you had to lack intelligence to go into medicine" I just had to interject and balance the discussion a little.

Again, I don't want to start an argument on this thread.. it's just nice to hear a little from the other side as well

 

[L8DYV]

It sounds like you would really enjoy being a physician, and you should stick with it.

Medicine is a really broad field and you can make whatever you want of it. Since I haven't started med school yet, I can only discuss with you examples of my previous experiences. I did a GI intership this past year, and my PI worked a standard 9-5 M-F shift and still had time to write research articles, give lectures and hold luncheons. He was totally happy, lived in a big house and drove nice cars. The key to working in medicine is that pharmaceutical companies really go after doc's to start clinical trials. One on-going 40-week trial compensated my doc $20k per patient and there were 30+ patients in the study... not bad for someone with with a 350K salary and a small research staff. Doctor's are still making good money, and are not being sued as much as everyone thinks. There are ton's of guidelines set forth to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits (consent forms, insurance...). Also there are malpractice caps set in place to prevent extremely high lawsuits when the doctor is negligent.

Dentistry is a great profession, and is known for its "lifestyle" but MD's aren't busting their asses for nothing. Given the competiveness of getting into cosmetic denistry and orthodontics, there are way more ways to live comfortably ($$) in medicine than dentistry (if that is all you are looking for). Here is a link of average physician salaries: http://www.alliedphysicians.com/salary-surveys/physicians/
(but, I dunno, it could be a fake portrayal of how Hollywood wants us to view doctors )

Most physicians go into medicine to help people, and for the most part, that's my primary reason for entering the field as well. But, when I hear that "you had to lack intelligence to go into medicine" I just had to interject and balance the discussion a little.

Again, I don't want to start an argument on this thread.. it's just nice to hear a little from the other side as well

Thanks for the post! Great!

 

[fussygal]

there are many people who quit dentistry because they find that dealing with dental care is a routine journey of life..so many people coming to u wid more or less the same problems!!

 

[issa]

i don't know what happened to the medicine field these days. my uncle who went to medecine school and did a residency 30 years ago is now rich. he got a huge 9 bed rooms house and many expensive cars. he was making 500k+ a year without taxes, but now he is retired.

 

[BerkeleyMD]

i don't know what happened to the medicine field these days. my uncle who went to medecine school and did a residency 30 years ago is now rich. he got a huge 9 bed rooms house and many expensive cars. he was making 500k+ a year without taxes, but now he is retired.

It all depends on the field of medicine you are in and the area in which you are practicing in. I know doctors that are making that much each year and some are making even more. Is that average, no, its on the high end of most medical professional salaries whether it be in medicine or dentistry. Much like dentistry, however, if you are trying to establish a private practice in a saturated region you will have a tough time breaking 300K/year.

There are more doctors and dentists living in suburbia and metro areas now than there ever was before. Your uncles salary, if adjusted for inflation, would be in the millions++... does that mean that doctors now are poor and cannot afford to live well? Come on! Check the stats, an MD fresh out of residency in IM can land a hospital job (9-5, M-F) for anywhere from 180-250K/year starting and that doesn't include signing bonuses, malpractice coverage, healthcare coverage and CME credits.

Healthcare is lucrative, especially for the professionals. However, I seriously doubt that medicine is any less desireable today as it was back then. Who knows, the dentistry boom may burst in our generation in the same way it did for medicine back in the 80's.

 

[speedy3816]

...the dentistry boom may burst in our generation in the same way it did for medicine back in the 80's.

Somehow I doubt that... just IMO

Anyways, if someone dreads going to work everyday, no amount of money is going to make that feeling go away. Sure, one could do it for the money (and I agree, the money is nice), but they would be grumbling al the time about how their job sucks. If someone looks foward to going to work everyday, then the money is not that much of a factor (i.e. it wouldn't be a big deal if their salary was $80,000). Sure, every job eventually becomes somewhat predictable... and I know that even those that actually look foward to going to work have those days that they just don't want to go to the office, but anyways I'll take satisfaction over money any day. Just my $0.02

speedy

 

[ncalcate]

Medicine is a really broad field and you can make whatever you want of it. Since I haven't started med school yet, I can only discuss with you examples of my previous experiences.

To the OP: I recommend that you keep the opinions of BerkeleyMD in perspective, given that he/she has not even started medical school yet. Anyone can shadow a physician or even work in a doctor's office and think they are an expert on the subject. If I were in your shoes, I would carefully evaluate the opinions/experiences of 4th year med students, residents, and practicing physicians. Anyone else (myself included - I am only a second year dental student) cannot provide you an accurate picture of what it is like to really practice medicine these days.

Good luck.

 

[boater]

To the OP: I recommend that you keep the opinions of BerkeleyMD in perspective, given that he/she has not even started medical school yet. Anyone can shadow a physician or even work in a doctor's office and think they are an expert on the subject. If I were in your shoes, I would carefully evaluate the opinions/experiences of 4th year med students, residents, and practicing physicians. Anyone else (myself included - I am only a second year dental student) cannot provide you an accurate picture of what it is like to really practice medicine these days.

Good luck.

Yeah, I agree. And I've been losing a lot of sleep over not being more active in college about seeing what medicine is really like before deciding that that's what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to do something where I was helping people. But I was a bit immature and hindsight is 20/20. If I knew what I know now about medicine and about my own personality, strengths, and weaknesses; I probably wouldn't have gone to medical school. The gratification is just way too delayed...the first 2 years involve intense studying, the 3rd year involves long hours at the hospital and more studying, and the 4th year is pretty chill. But after all that, you have to go through a few more years of residency. which can be grueling. It's very hard not to become jaded, but if you like your job at the end of the process then it's all worth it. And it's not like dental school is a walk in the park...anything worthwhile takes a lot of hard work. My problem is that I'm not so sure that I will enjoy being a physician. It's difficult to think about too because there are so many different subspecialties in medicine, and a lot of people wait until 3rd year when they have more exposure to the different fields before they figure out what they want to do. But I don't feel comfortable doing that because there are no guarantees that you can match into the specialty of your choice and because of all of the regrets that I hear from many physicians and residents. Anyways, even if I shadow more physicians and dentists, it's not like I can obtain some guarantee that I will end up loving whatever profession I choose for my entire life. It's probably not going to be quite what I imagined either way...but that's life!