Dentistry ohh dentistry....................

[12345a]

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I've been shadowing a GP, Endo, Ortho, and OS for a while now and there's one thing that I have found out about myself:

I don't want to be a 'small business' owner.

I don't want my staff to be like a family where we all go out for picnics and lunches together. I don't want to see the people I work with on weekends and I damn sure don't want to socialize with them. I want my co workers to be just that - co workers.

I don't want to run a business and I'm certain that don't want to manage my subordiantes.

Are there any alernatives to running a clinic in the field of dentistry where one can make the same kind of money??

 

[Ranelar]

I've been shadowing a GP, Endo, Ortho, and OS for a while now and there's one thing that I have found out about myself:

I don't want to be a 'small business' owner.

I don't want my staff to be like a family where we all go out for picnics and lunches together. I don't want to see the people I work with on weekends and I damn sure don't want to socialize with them. I want my co workers to be just that - co workers.

I don't want to run a business and I'm certain that don't want to manage my subordiantes.

Are there any alernatives to running a clinic in the field of dentistry where one can make the same kind of money??

Sure, you can hide in the shadow of an associateship for eternity, and brush-off your coworkers as you see fit! And you don't have to run the business yourself! Woot 😛

 

[12345a]

i don't want to run a business and i don't want to be one of those saps that hangs out with his co workers..... you make it sound like a bad thing

anything else besides being an associate?

(which doesn't really bring in the same kind of $)

 

[timwatley]

If you don't own then business then maybe you will be the one accompanying your boss to the picnic. 👍

 

[adizzle87]

You could work for corporate dentistry....companies like Western Dental

 

[12345a]

is teaching out of the question?

 

[Ranelar]

is teaching out of the question?

You scoffed at associateship, so yes.

 

[12345a]

well not scoffed...i plan on associating and like most dds/dmd's I plan to move on

what are the requirements and pay for teacher's and corporate dentists?

 

[Ranelar]

Last I heard, teaching makes about 90k, which is why I said it's not an option if you scoffed at associate pay

 

[radeon]

i work in a very small dental office (staffed by 3 people only: the dentist, the front desk, and the assistant which is me). my boss and i never talk. we never go on picnics, we RARELY go out for lunch, we don't socialize outside of work. when we do talk, it's about how to set up for the patient, or during the procedure itself. my point is that you don't have to be one big happy family in a small dental office. you can be as aloof as you want to be. my coworker and i hate it, but the dentist is the boss, and what she says goes. or doesn't say, i guess.

edit:
oh yea, my boss doesn't manage her subordinates at all. the front desk/office manager does that. you can go through an entire day at work without really talking to any of your employees!

 

[notin]

if you feel this way, why are you going into dentistry? you will be around people all the time, constantly in social situations with co-workers and patients. if you have weak social skills and/or are anti-social, i think you are doomed to have a miserable time no matter what your position is.

also, as far as i know, there is no situation other than owning your own practice where you make the same level of money. i do think you can own your own practice and just be a jerk to your workers/unfriendly with them, and they will stay anyway, it just won't be a great situation.

 

[12345a]

I think some of you are confusing being antisocial with wanting to separate work with friends.

other than that...thanks!

 

[Gokes]

I don't even understand why you would want to go into dentistry. If you are in it for the money then there are other easier ways. Personally, being a small business owner is one of the pros to going into dentistry. I don't think there are any other ways of making the same amount of money as a dentists without owning your own business. If being a small business owner is that bad to you and you are set on making more money maybe you should rethink your career choice because I don't know if you can have both in this field.

 

[enfuego]

I'm sure there are practices that have the environment you're looking for. Most offices probably have a friendly, "sappy" environment since dentists are usually sociable people, but I'm sure there are also offices that are strictly business. You'll just have to search more than others to find that kind of place.

 

[hattrack04]

Military dentistry....a lot of your staff in a military dental clinic consists of enlisted individuals. Technically you are not even supposed to hang out and socialize with enlisted, especially enlisted co-workers, on a normal or frequent basis. No worries about running the practice either. Just one thing, you need to be patriotic and DO NOT do it for the money (the scholarship).

 

[mddang]

Just because you're friendly with your staff doesn't mean that you have to make them your best friends. Why would you want to be a robot? What's wrong with being friendly?

Silly pre-dent.. Well.. I'm still pre-dental too haha, but whatever.

 

[12345a]

i know it's kind of out of the ordinary (and I'm no means a robot madd 😉)..but i would rather socialize with people of my choosing, not with those that I am obligated to spend 9 hours of my day with

i like the idea of military dentistry...are they compensated well???

(from my small amount of research it seems that they arn't)

for those of you who are about to type "don't do it for the money mann" - I like money and I like dentistry... if it's a good fit i'll do it..so don't start with me about getting into for the dinero b/c it does play a role in what I will be doing until i retire

 

[jay47]

I've been shadowing a GP, Endo, Ortho, and OS for a while now and there's one thing that I have found out about myself:

I don't want to be a 'small business' owner.

I don't want my staff to be like a family where we all go out for picnics and lunches together. I don't want to see the people I work with on weekends and I damn sure don't want to socialize with them. I want my co workers to be just that - co workers.

I don't want to run a business and I'm certain that don't want to manage my subordiantes.

Are there any alernatives to running a clinic in the field of dentistry where one can make the same kind of money??

Just because you are a small business owner you don't have to do any of those things. OWNING your own practice implies that YOU control it, and therefore YOU control what you do and don't want to do. If you don't want to go on a picnic with your hygenist, then don't, she sure as hell can't force you.

I think you have your own idea of what is right, but saying you don't want to be a small business owner because you don't want to do those things doesn't really support that idea. Good luck man.

 

[Mtd0588]

Distancing yourself from your staff is probably key to having a successful practice. If a practice owner develops too close of a relationship with his/her staff, that could only hurt the business. I don't see why that would be the reason you don't want to own your own practice; most dentists keep some level of distance while maintaining a friendly, while professional relationship with their staff.

 

[gryffindor]

Every office you shadowed went out to lunch together on a regular basis and hung out on weekends together often? Are you in a very small town?

Every office I have worked in, the office was never a chummy social scene. There were offices where the staff were all friends with each other and ones where the staff treat each other only as co-workers and nothing more. The doctors never hung out with the staff on a very regular basis but only on occasions like taking them to a Christmas party or if a birthday was being celebrated at work. In fact, if you are a woman, I have heard consultants say that you don't want to be hanging out with your staff regularly because they can start losing sight of you as an authority figure if you do that.

 

[Kneecoal]

augh... i have to say, i think i've experienced sort of the extreme of a chummy office. i worked at an ortho office for 2.5 years in high school, where the office was run by an older doc and his younger female associate. the 10 or so assistants/receptionists were all women, as you might imagine, but he must have thought he was a santa pimp or something. but everyone would go get lunch regularly, or would have barbecues or those "tastefully simple" food parties and invite the coworkers. every summer the doc also closed the office for a day and had us all come to his beach house. but since he also had a house attached to the office (he spends the colder months commuting from manhattan), he would go so far as to ask us to pick up/drop off his dry cleaning, clean out the fridge, go food shopping, pick up his ferry tickets, or make him a sandwich. annoying. and he used to kiss us on the cheek. awkward.

 

[notin]

op, i originally answering assuming you were saying you're anti-social because i thought your question didn't make sense otherwise. i've never seen an office where the dentist and his workers are all buddy buddy hanging out after work and on the weekends. That would be quite bizarre actually and not really conducive to a boss/worker relationship. I think it helps a lot if you get along and are friendly with each other at work, though that isn't even required, but it doesn't go outside of that beyond christmas party type stuff. If your thing is you just don't want the hassle of running a business yourself, that is more understandable, but i don't think it is really a big problem because you should hire an office manager who can take care of everything for you.

 

[12345a]

thanks...i don't know why the idea of an office manager didn't come to mind sooner

and yeah, I'm in a semi-small town (~30k ppl). The offices that I shadowed in were all terribly close; lunches, dinners, family gatherings, and vacations together (only at 1 of them). But I get that I can run my business the way I see fit and create a sort of norm for the people I hire.

Thanks, this has been an informative discussion.

 

[Ranelar]

With regard to office managers, it's nice to have em, but make sure you check your own books at the end of every day. It's also a good idea to have a third party run the numbers at the end of every month. You never want to have blind trust in someone else when it comes to money. I know a dentist whose partner embezzled tax money, which led to bankrupcy and basically put him out of work for 20 years because the IRS stalked the "good guy" since the "bad guy" was not as easy to locate.

 

[JamesOSU]

That is exactly what I want to do - though maybe not the picnics and stuff? What happens if you actually LIKE your staff? Are you going to higher people you don't want to be around?? Just hire people you like and it'll be fine, it's like you're already writing off any chance of actually enjoying the people you work with.

I wouldn't want to work with you

 

[12345a]

i wouldn't want to work with me either

it's true that I am writing my co workers off before I know them but I'm just the type of guy that likes to keep my work and social life separate....i think that's a reasonable thing to want