Medicine, in my opinion, is still more competitive to get into than dentistry. The average GPA of medical applicant is higher than that of a dental applicant. Yes, one could argue that there less dental schools to apply to and I don't refute that. However, I think that there are less dental applicants too. I think that underlying reason for many more qualified people applying to medical school is the hype about becoming an MD (just think about all the medical shows out there, Grey's anatomy, ER, etc), the perception about $$$ and prestige and of course, belief that you could help people.
As for DOs, foreign medical schools and DPM (foot doctor, not really MDs), the competition for these spots are comparable to dentistry, if not less. DO students and some foreign medical students still have a pretty good chance of getting into a specialty. Ie, St. Georges--they have outstanding residency placements.
However, I believe that the market will correct itself in the near future and dentistry will become just as competitive if not more than medicine. Looking at the stats for Canadian dental schools, I was surprised to find that the stats for dental school applicants are better than for medical school applicants for the same institutions--I guess nationalized healthcare hit Canada pretty hard. Years back, dentists were earning $80k and doctors $100k. Now dentists on average earn 130K and primary care practitioners 150K (salary.com). Even some sources (WSJ, ADA) state that dentists are earning more than primary care practitioners.
The field is definitely a lot less stressful and in many cases, less years of school. It requires creativity (in terms manual dexterity and aesthetics) that I think medicine can't match. The rate of increase of dentist's salary surpasses physician's salary, mainly b/c managed care has hit medicine the hardest and dentists can more easily resort to self-pay procedures (ie, cosmetics). Specialization has become more accessible to dental students. The future is very bright for the dental profession.
. In medicine, there are a lot of options: you can go DO, DPM, or even foreign MD, which in my state makes up 30% of the doctors. So their is always a fall back plan for medicine, but for dental school that is not the case (unless you want to go foreign but i think that is a terrible idea).
