Dental Specialties vs. Dermatology

[CanuckDDS]

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And for a second I thought he was from Canada.

oh jees! Them's fight' words Cleatus!

 

[jumpingjax]

First off, I'm a resident about to head out into the private practice world in anesthesia. I have several close friends (and 2 ex's) that are about 4-5 years out practicing dentistry in the southeast. I have one close friend who is a derm fellow.

If you are seiously considering Derm vs Orthodontics/OMFS, go the dental route!

1. Landing a derm residency is ultra tough. You're competing against the best students in medicine across the country, not people that couldn't get into med school in the first place.

2. From people I know personally, Orthodontics/OMFS make a $hitload more than most dermatologists.

3. Flame me or whatever, but dental school is a joke compared to med school. In dental school, you have ample time to go out, party, have hobbies, start a family, etc. Not so in medical school, especially if you want to do anything competetive (anesthesa, derm, ortho, rads, rad onc). Every test, clinical interaction, board may make you or break you for a competetive specialty.

4. Current state of healthcare. As a physician, you have a huge target painted on your back by lawyers, lawmakers, and the general public. For some reason, dentistry has flown below the radar (who knows for how much longer...).

The general dentists I know do well, but no where near the numbers you people seem to quote here. Also, some bigger markets are saturated with general dentists. And thats purely anecdotal info based on shooting the $hit with my dental buddies.

If I had to do it over, would I choose dentistry? No. I'm kind of an arrogant prick and would always have wondered what it would be like to be a real doctor. Also, I'm kind of an over achiever. But if you can swallow your pride and are only concerened about making money, dentistry seems like a sweet gig!

 

[gary_ruska]

First off, I'm a resident about to head out into the private practice world in anesthesia. I have several close friends (and 2 ex's) that are about 4-5 years out practicing dentistry in the southeast. I have one close friend who is a derm fellow.

If you are seiously considering Derm vs Orthodontics/OMFS, go the dental route!

1. Landing a derm residency is ultra tough. You're competing against the best students in medicine across the country, not people that couldn't get into med school in the first place.

2. From people I know personally, Orthodontics/OMFS make a $hitload more than most dermatologists.

3. Flame me or whatever, but dental school is a joke compared to med school. In dental school, you have ample time to go out, party, have hobbies, start a family, etc. Not so in medical school, especially if you want to do anything competetive (anesthesa, derm, ortho, rads, rad onc). Every test, clinical interaction, board may make you or break you for a competetive specialty.

4. Current state of healthcare. As a physician, you have a huge target painted on your back by lawyers, lawmakers, and the general public. For some reason, dentistry has flown below the radar (who knows for how much longer...).

The general dentists I know do well, but no where near the numbers you people seem to quote here. Also, some bigger markets are saturated with general dentists. And thats purely anecdotal info based on shooting the $hit with my dental buddies.

If I had to do it over, would I choose dentistry? No. I'm kind of an arrogant prick and would always have wondered what it would be like to be a real doctor. Also, I'm kind of an over achiever. But if you can swallow your pride and are only concerened about making money, dentistry seems like a sweet gig!

Gary "So close post" Ruska here,

You were so close to having a reasonable post until you said the following:

Flame me or whatever, but dental school is a joke compared to med school. In dental school, you have ample time to go out, party, have hobbies, start a family, etc. Not so in medical school, especially if you want to do anything competetive (anesthesa, derm, ortho, rads, rad onc). Every test, clinical interaction, board may make you or break you for a competetive specialty.

Unless you have actually been to both dental school and medical school, you have absolutely no basis for comparison.

Fortunately, GR has been to both and can say that dental school was more difficult. As a dental student, you are the sole provider for your patients and, if they have a problem at 2 AM, they call you. You are responsible for their treatment plan, course of care, scheduling and billing. This is in addition to all of the didactic and technical knowledge that you must acquire.

As a medical student, you only get called for an emergency at 2 AM if your senior resident needs coffee, a disimpaction needs to happen or a pannus needs retracting. You are the lowest man on a 10-member team and are only responsible for a) reading, b) staying out of your intern's way, c) writing progress notes for the 3-5 patients that you carry and d) incessantly whining about how difficult medical school is compared to practically everything else (including fighting tigers with two arms tied behind your back and a blindfold over your eyes).

GR will concede, however, that, on average, the type of person who goes into dentistry represents someone who desires a more relaxed lifestyle and enjoys life more. This may translate, to the external observer, as a "party animal" with an IQ of 6 and thus, taken out of context, suggest that "dental school is a joke".

In addition, GR would venture to guess that if you took the top dental students in the country and put them in medical school, they would do extremely well, although they would probably go into derm or rads instead of neurosurg, plastics or cardiology.

PS - Last time GR checked, anesthesia was not that competitive. Sure, if you want anesthesia at a top program, but anesthesia period - no way. GR's Step 1 score would have been good enough, based on the current posts in the anesthesia forum.

 

[jumpingjax]

Gary "So close post" Ruska here,

You were so close to having a reasonable post until you said the following:

Flame me or whatever, but dental school is a joke compared to med school. In dental school, you have ample time to go out, party, have hobbies, start a family, etc. Not so in medical school, especially if you want to do anything competetive (anesthesa, derm, ortho, rads, rad onc). Every test, clinical interaction, board may make you or break you for a competetive specialty.

Unless you have actually been to both dental school and medical school, you have absolutely no basis for comparison.

Fortunately, GR has been to both and can say that dental school was more difficult. As a dental student, you are the sole provider for your patients and, if they have a problem at 2 AM, they call you. You are responsible for their treatment plan, course of care, scheduling and billing. This is in addition to all of the didactic and technical knowledge that you must acquire.

As a medical student, you only get called for an emergency at 2 AM if your senior resident needs coffee, a disimpaction needs to happen or a pannus needs retracting. You are the lowest man on a 10-member team and are only responsible for a) reading, b) staying out of your intern's way, c) writing progress notes for the 3-5 patients that you carry and d) incessantly whining about how difficult medical school is compared to practically everything else (including fighting tigers with two arms tied behind your back and a blindfold over your eyes).

GR will concede, however, that, on average, the type of person who goes into dentistry represents someone who desires a more relaxed lifestyle and enjoys life more. This may translate, to the external observer, as a "party animal" with an IQ of 6 and thus, taken out of context, suggest that "dental school is a joke".

In addition, GR would venture to guess that if you took the top dental students in the country and put them in medical school, they would do extremely well, although they would probably go into derm or rads instead of neurosurg, plastics or cardiology.

PS - Last time GR checked, anesthesia was not that competitive. Sure, if you want anesthesia at a top program, but anesthesia period - no way. GR's Step 1 score would have been good enough, based on the current posts in the anesthesia forum.

Are you referencing yourself in the 3rd person or are you talking about someone named GR? If you are referencing yourself in the 3rd person, I'm really curious as to why.

And if you are GR - you seriously went through med school and then dental school? Are you crazy? Are you on some kind of sampler plan? Dude, thats ALOT of school. What's next, pharmacy?

Anyway, thanks for making my point 😍 - you seem to have a HUGE chip on shoulder.

Hey, g2g, - I have to give a confernece to the med students on how to disimpact with style.

 

[6897round2]

you seriously went through med school and then dental school? Are you crazy? Are you on some kind of sampler plan? Dude, thats ALOT of school. What's next, pharmacy?

Anyway, thanks for making my point 😍 - you seem to have a HUGE chip on shoulder.

Uh, dude, you seem to not know who you're dealing with.

Ask around, most people will tell you that Gary Ruska is a pretty decent guy and probably one of the best resources on SDN.

BTW, Gary Ruska, like almost all of the OMFS residents on here, went to dental school and then medical school as part of OMFS residency. I really doubt that he has a chip on his shoulder and you seem, despite your arrogance and uppity attitude, to know nothing about OMFS or dentistry in general.

 

[Aceofspades]

Fortunately, GR has been to both and can say that dental school was more difficult. As a dental student, you are the sole provider for your patients and, if they have a problem at 2 AM, they call you. You are responsible for their treatment plan, course of care, scheduling and billing. This is in addition to all of the didactic and technical knowledge that you must acquire.

As a medical student, you only get called for an emergency at 2 AM if your senior resident needs coffee, a disimpaction needs to happen or a pannus needs retracting.

I suppose anyone can get a 2 AM call but I don't know any dental students who get up and respond to a 2 AM dental call. Heck, the clinic isn't even open. I don't know about rotations though.

Also, since you were an OMFS resident completing the last 2 years of medical school you possibly had 2 things going for you. For one, you completed dental school and part of OMFS before doing the last 2 years of medical school. You had much more insight and experience than the average med student who just completed 2 years of pre-clinical medical courses. Second, many people say that the first 2 years of medical and dental school are the worst. So during your 2 years in medical school it is possible that you didn't experience the worst as a med student. As a dental student you experienced those worst 2 years which would give you the impression that your dental school experience was more difficult.

Even if someone did complete 4 years of dental school and 4 years of medical school completely separate, there would still be bias in the comparison. Things are always easier the second time around so the first one will probably seem more difficult. It would be nice if we had the perspective of someone who went through 4 years of medical school first, then dental school to test it out. I suspect they would think the medical school was more difficult.

 

[gary_ruska]

I suppose anyone can get a 2 AM call but I don't know any dental students who get up and respond to a 2 AM dental call. Heck, the clinic isn't even open. I don't know about rotations though.

Also, since you were an OMFS resident completing the last 2 years of medical school you possibly had 2 things going for you. For one, you completed dental school and part of OMFS before doing the last 2 years of medical school. You had much more insight and experience than the average med student who just completed 2 years of pre-clinical medical courses. Second, many people say that the first 2 years of medical and dental school are the worst. So during your 2 years in medical school it is possible that you didn't experience the worst as a med student. As a dental student you experienced those worst 2 years which would give you the impression that your dental school experience was more difficult.

Even if someone did complete 4 years of dental school and 4 years of medical school completely separate, there would still be bias in the comparison. Things are always easier the second time around so the first one will probably seem more difficult. It would be nice if we had the perspective of someone who went through 4 years of medical school first, then dental school to test it out. I suspect they would think the medical school was more difficult.

Gary "Nothing is easy" Ruska here,
Excellent points. However, GR could just as easily have made the argument that medical school would be more difficult for an OMFS resident because most of the pimp stuff in the third year of medical school is basic science related stuff that OMFS residents have not thought about in years (i.e. since the second year of dental school).

Also, one can make the somewhat reasonable argument that the first two years of dental school and medical school are comparable in rigor. There is evidence for this, as many OMFS residents, who have only their basic science education from dental school, routinely pass USMLE Step 1 (GR is aware that some do MS2 as part of their program, but many have to take Step 1 before starting intern year or during intern year itself before starting MSIII). A corollary to this is that a MS who is gunning for orthopedics, radiology or derm is similar to a DS who is gunning for orthodontics, endodontics or OMFS - both will work hard to try to be at the top of the class to improve their chances of matching. With these considerations in mind, the differences are most apparent between the MSIII-IV and DSIII-IV years. This was the point that GR was trying to make. The DSIII is as challenging (if not moreso) than the MSIII year because of the greater level of responsibility while also having the same didactic requirements. Those DS who go out partying every night are likely not those who want to keep their grades up so that they can match into ortho, endo or OMFS (either that or they're geniuses). Anyone who has been through DSIV and MSIV can tell you that MSIV is nowhere near as rigorous as DSIV. Just ask any DSIV if they're worried they might not graduate and compare the percentage yes from that group to a similar group of MSIV.

Perhaps GR's point is only valid for an OMFS resident who does the MSIII and MSIV years after intern year (having been out of the basic science stuff for 3 years) and has only two weeks to prepare for USMLE step 1 at the end of intern year.

In any event, no worries here. GR stands by GR's opinion and would welcome a contribution from any other OMFS or other person who has gone through both medical and dental school, in either order.

 

[ramseszerg]

I have a related question here,

Does the average dentist who makes 200K a year working 40 hour weeks have the option to work 80 hour weeks and make 400K?

 

[Istr8nthem]

Great posts by GR always brighten my day! Thanks man!

 

[lotexigeus]

I have a related question here,

Does the average dentist who makes 200K a year working 40 hour weeks have the option to work 80 hour weeks and make 400K?

they can do whatever they want (or feel capable of doing).

 

[ramseszerg]

they can do whatever they want (or feel capable of doing).

So basically you're saying that the average dentist has a long ass waiting list all the time that wouldn't run short even if he worked twice as much?

 

[lotexigeus]

So basically you're saying that the average dentist has a long ass waiting list all the time that wouldn't run short even if he worked twice as much?

if he can get the patients. you're the one who asked the dumb question brah.

 

[BluexSound]

Exactly! You live in perhaps the MOST SATURATED metropolitan area in the world when it comes to dentists/dental schools. Get yourself out of the area and you will see that those numbers you don't believe are true may be closer to the truth than you think! It's a poll/survey, which means people are coming in all over the spectrum. People in NYC, LA, Philly, etc will likely have a lower average salary than someone in Maine, Montana, Iowa, New Mexico, etc based purely on location. Then add in cost of living and you will certainly see that you are screwing yourself. Move somewhere with lower cost of living and higher earning potential and stop trying to make everyone think that earning a great living as a dentist is impossible!

Amen 👍