is there another career u think is better
why and what would u recommend instead
Starting salary yearly is 120k which has not even remotely kept up with inflation- it was 120k when I graduated and is 120k now-, absolutely insane tuition costs like please do not go into dentistry for more than 200k, incredibly stressful job where patients will openly tell you how much they don't want to see you, the work is exhausting and surprisingly labor intensive, DSOs are currently taking over this profession, if you want to specialize you'll have to spend even more money, etc etc.
i’m interested in anything medical
Explore nursing, PA, perfusion, AA, medicine, etc. So many to choose from. You just have to do your homework and weigh the pros and cons of each.
but ur saying dentist isn’t worth it wb medicine? (pediatrician maybe)
how much do you think dentists will make if they graduate in next 4 years, like after some years is there a cap?
It depends on how hard you are willing to work and how fast you are. Unlike medicine, dentists have to sit down to perform the procedure in order to get paid. So the more skill that you have, the more highly paid procedures (implants, extractions, endos etc) you can perform, the higher volume of patients you can treat in a day, the more money you will make. One dentist can do a molar root canal in 1 hr and makes $1000-1500. For another dentist, it may take him 3 hours (2-appointment day) to do the same root canal....or sometimes, it's too difficult for him to perfom and he has to refer the case to an endodontist.
ok thanks. in general for the future, is medicine or dental a “better” career in your opinion. ik both have pros and cons but i enjoy both.
A lot of good info here, Charles. However, we have to keep in mind that while 120k is a decent starting salary compared to most people in their mid/late 20s, in dentistry at state schools it costs 400k+ these days. Atrocious ROI. I left with 200k and barely think that was financially worth it. With IBR gone, you'd be insane to do dentistry at current debt levels with private loans.
One more thing no one has mentioned. Dentistry is turning into a retail occupation whereas medicine is still a profession. Dentists/Dental Corps are advertising their services which comes across as a "commodity" to the typical patient. i.e "What does a filling/cap cost? What's a set of braces cost? Medicine typically does not advertise. Of course. Some do (plastic surgery, etc.).
It has always been like this as long as I know. When my younger brother needed braces, my dad had to shop around for an orthodontist that charged the low fee. With his income, he could only afford to pay for one of us. I didn’t get braces until my 2nd year of dental school…with the student loan money of course.
With much higher cost of living and high home prices that are 2-3 times more than we, old people, had to pay, young people have to work harder, regardless of what career they choose. They don’t have any other choices. A starter home here in CA is $1M. Only people who make at least $300k (and have zero student loan debt) can afford to buy a house here. And what jobs out there that pay a new grad $300k? Almost none. Maybe….a first year medical doctor but he/she had to do 3 years of low pay residency before that.
I don't fault you because you practiced during this decline in dentistry. I also admire you since you did what you had to do to succeed without complaining.
I don't complain because dentistry has been a wonderful profession for me. I was able to climb up the social ladder because of it.
so would you recommend medicine or dentistry (general or specialty) for your kids? Thanks in advance.
Charles, it was significantly easier, if not expected, in the 90's to be able to start a dental practice from scratch, advertise, and be successful. It is not the same today. In fact, most will never own. Of all of my classmates, you can count the owners on one hand. DSO's with associateships are the future of dentistry. I admit, if you start a rural practice far away from DSOs and the insane city saturation, you can practice dentistry much more traditionally. However, how many graduates will actually live longterm in a rural area? Very few. And as 2THMVR alluded to, dentistry has been much more commoditized as dentists compete for patients in saturated cities.
How many are associates at a private practice and planning on buying the practice? How many of your classmates have tried ownership and failed? Would you say the lack of ownership is due to student loan burdens or not wanting to deal with the stress? Or is it not being able to find the right practice/unwillingness to move to the right location? You make it seem like all of your classmates are on the struggle bus.
I can think of at least one. I'm sure there are more who hope to buy a practice at some point. However, I remember a Howard Farran quote that was something along the lines of "If you don't become an owner after 5 years of practicing, you never will." I think people tell themselves they'll buy but they won't. Every dental student tells themselves they'll own as they likely shadowed at dental offices that were opened by dentists from Charles and 2THMVR's generation. However, the data backs up that ownership is on a decline. Pre dents would be better off shadowing at DSOs.
None of my classmates that I know of. It's probably still too early to tell but I am optimistic for my classmates who bought or started their own practice. They are in rural areas so I do believe they will not just be successful but far better off than the rest of my classmates who are associates in cities. I do know of one person who tried opening a practice in a saturated midwestern city and failed. I don't know the exact details of that situation though. I was told that by someone who offered me a job. But again, the point is that so many fewer graduates will end up owning today.
Student loan debt is a killer. It is terrifying adding another 500k to your 400k of loans. Probably also a mixture that the costs up front such as real estate are insane. People don't want to spend years losing money upfront either.
Where have I said that? You've responded to me before and keep trying to say I'm saying things that I'm not. Such as here:
Some of my classmates are doing great. Some have crazy hight loans and make sub 200k. It's a mixed bag. I'm guessing most are doing IBR but I'm honestly not sure. However, all I've said is very few of my classmates are owners.
You often talk about low salaries and few people owning a practice. I associate those things with financial struggles. I wasn’t sure if they weren’t owners due to the financials or other reasons which is why I asked the questions.
Both are good fields. Both are in high demand and offer you job stability. Unlike engineering and other careers, dentists and physicians will never be employed. People get sick as they age and they need to see their doctors. Most people don’t brush and floss the way they are supposed to….and like the rest of their body parts, teeth will get worse as they age and they will need to see their dentists to fix their teeth.
When I started my first office, I hired a company (forgot the name of the company) to do direct mail campaign for me. They charged me around $12k to send out 15000 post cards to families who have kids between ages 7-18….and they sent these post cards to the same addresses 3 times. Guess how many patients called my office? Only 5. One angry person called my office to complain and asked us to stop sending “junk flyers” to her house. Of those 5 people who called, 3 started the treatments. The sale rep, who worked for this direct mail company, told me that her dad’s an orthodontist and despite having an established practice, he still continued use her company to advertise to get more patients.
I’ve already seen that. Did you see the part where they looked at dentists who graduated between 2006 and 2010 to come up with that conclusion?
I wouldn’t recommend dentistry to a student who has to take out $500k loans and thinks that he/she can just work 4 days wk after graduation…..earning $100-120k/yr. I usually tell them straight to their face that they’ll need to work 6 days/wk (for a couple of years) to make at least twice that amount. Forget about the IBR…it’s a trap that keeps them in debt forever. If they think what I suggest is crazy, then they should pursue another health field that charges lower tuitions. And they must pursue another health field because a BS degree in Bio is pretty much a worthless degree. Taking a gap year (or two) is not gonna help…it only delays the retirement/financial goal. Since many of them already spent 3-4 years of their undergrads to study biology, doing more schooling for an entirely different career path like engineering, mba will cost them even more money (student loan money). The later they start working, the longer they will have to work to save for retirement.
Wow, the fact that 25.4% of dentists under 30 were practice owners in 2005 is mind blowing to me.
That is pretty crazy. Those days are over. solo doc offices will be a rare boutique thing.
good like to your son! what is better in your opinion general dentistry or being specialist like ortho, endo etc ? what is average tuition for dental residencies?
I'm just sharing for a point of reference.
www.aae.org
An orthodontic internship where you pay 35k to do a couple of ortho starts and then you mentor dental students. This stuff is going to go bye bye with the new big beautiful bill.I'm just sharing for a point of reference.
Endodontic Programs & Requirements - American Association of Endodontists
Fastest way to find advanced specialty programs in endodontics. Search by state. Includes all accredited graduate programs in endodontics in U.S. and Canada
Post-Graduate Programs | School of Dentistry
dentistry.ucsf.edu
Orthodontic Internship - Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
The Orthodontic Internship provides clinical experience and didactic knowledge in all phases of orthodontics.lecom.edu
Back in those days ..... there were fewer Dental Corps. A young dentist had 3 options: 1. associate with a plan to buy in or 2. buy an existing practice or 3. open a start up practice. There were fewer Corp jobs back then. Back then .... I associated for 6 months. Then I bought into the practice. 18 months later I purchased the entire practice from the senior ortho. Working for a Corp was not an option back then.
What a better time. Today, given the high student debt loads and severe saturation in cities, graduates will take an associateship with a guaranteed income rather than own, which perpetuates DSO proliferation even further. The founder of Heartland opened a dental school already. DSO's will do what they can to expand. With that said, because of the BBB, if we get mass dental school closures and/or significant reductions in student loan debt, this could lead to both more ownership and less saturation. Let's hope that's the case. I hate seeing my profession be taken over by corporations.
Look out for heartland “HPSP” contracts lol
" It doesn’t make any business sense to pay someone $100 an hour to clean teeth when the insurance only pay $70 for a cleaning."
I hope my son will get in somewhere.
You can easily do it yourself in less than 10 minutes (that’s how long it takes me to clean my kids’ teeth). So in 1 hour, you can do 5-6 cleanings .…producing $400 or netting $200 (assuming that you can keep the overhead at 50%). Earning $200 per hour is way better than having to pay $100/hour to hire a hygienist....and then have to worry about empty hygiene schedule, worker comp, vacation pay, and other labor laws that you have to comply. Here in CA, medicaid pays $90 for a cleaning. If you have time to write posts on this SDN, you should have time to clean teeth. New grads need to realize that doing cleaning is not beneath them. There are plenty of dentists who do their own cleanings.
Love how you deflected why you are getting paid fees from 15+ yrs ago. This is the problem with dentistry, folks like you who say put your head downs and do 4 cleanings an hour. lol jokes.
I am not deflecting anything. I am just telling the predents how dentists like my friends and my sister in saturated markets are doing in order to survive. These dentists are older (they are my age) who graduated with very little amount of debt. And yet, they have worked very hard.... they never have hygienist in their office. As a specialist, I also have to reduce fees in order keep my practice busy. There are more dental offices here in CA than there are gas stations. The predents need to know about the current state of dentistry so they can make a wise decision about whether or not they should take out loans and go into this profession. I don’t want to give them false hope.
This is important. The experience of your dental friends is substantially different than what current young dentists face. I'm pretty sure UCLA dental is 400k+ in state now.
My point was we, older dentists, didn't have that much student loans. And yet, many of us had worked 6 days/wk after graduation. I didn't stop working 6 days/wk until turned 49...I graduated at 29...so that's 20 yrs of hard work. What make the new grads who have $400-500k debt think that they can just work 4 days/wk...and expect to be OK? That's why I keep saying go to dentistry, only if you are ok with working hard (like 6 days/wk) and live like a student for many years after graduation. If you can't do that, then pick another field with less debt.
Because **** needs to change, what if in 15 yrs cleaning fee has not gone up? Don't tell me it's not possible! Clearly that's what you thought 15 yrs ago if faced with the same question. Jeez, no business sense is needed, common sense tells you otherwise. I come on here to tell these folks to buck the trend, plant the seed in their heads to not accept it! To stand up to this bull**** work harder mantra has dentistry is already hard enough. Wake up man, this is serious stuff. If said to you 15 yrs ago that you will get the same fee in 2025, you would smile and work harder?
