Honestly, you sound like you don't know much about dental school/dental curriculum. As a current D3 interested in OMFS who has a SO that is an M3 at a decent MD School (top 20-30) here are my thoughts.
Agree with you on this.
Labwork is no joke, I was putting in 65-75 hrs a week total during D2 with indirect, prosth, practicing for practicals etc on top of our 40hrs a week mandatory attendance. And we had 1-2 tests each week also. Meanwhile my SO was sitting at home chilling and hitting that spacebar, then cramming for a couple days before each major test block. Also most med students compare that rotations are straight up glorified shadowing, whereas dental students are actually seeing patients and drilling into them, so that's not really a good argument.
Semi-agree here. Most specialties in dentistry are pay-to-play, but the few stipend paying ones are definitely competitive. Also most dental schools are still ranked, whereas medical schools are P/F for the most part or your rank doesn't matter ( though AOA is always nice). But you can't compare Plastics/Derm to perio/prosth. Family med, Peds, IM which is what the majority of med students enter, is not competitive, especially community programs.
Yea, no. It's a different skill set. Just because you're good at taking tests doesn't mean you're good at lab/clinic which is huge. Hand skills are something that can be trained, but some people are naturally gifted and you can't beat them. That's what it takes to be 1-5 at my school. This is like all the dental/med students saying they should've gone into tech because they could easily make 250k$ starting salary because memorizing biochem and coding are the same....
This just sounds sad honestly. You should take pride in who you are, but doing things for prestige and glory isn't gonna matter much when you have patients cuss you out while you're working 80 hrs a week. Also this thread is about derm. Half of my friends from high school think dermatology= cosmetology lol, you're not getting "respect" from the average joe regardless. If you wanna do neurosurgery or something, then your argument is more valid.
If you have the luxury of deciding between medical or dental school then you also have the luxury of choosing a career you are truly interested in ( which, unfortunately, most people don't get). While I don't think passion is the end all to be all, it is a factor to be considered. I would look into the term ikigai.
So you agreed with almost everything I said, except for the lab-work taking a chunk of time, and the idea that people choose medicine because of ego? How is that wrong? I'm not saying it's the deciding factor, but I was responding to the OP's question, would orthodontists/other people in dentistry choose dermatology. I said probably not, unless they have an ego. That's a good thing. I agree that you should not pick careers due to money, or the perceived respect. In fact, after like 200k post tax, I'm sure most people can easily live how they want, and happiness comes from different places when you are financially okay.
But there is no doubt that any MD specialty, even "derm = cosmetology" is viewed better than any dental specialty, and that this plays a role in people deciding medicine over dentistry. If you are arguing against that, then I feel you are out of touch with reality. Now, whether that should be a consideration at all, is up for debate.
If medicine was not viewed as more prestigious, no way in hell there would be more applicants to it than dentistry. Dentistry offers a great lifestyle (barring the debt at some institutions), and specialties like OMFS are OP as hell in private practice. You would think that more people would flock to it.
Also, just because FM/IM/peds isn't competitive in MD circles, doesn't mean the applicants themselves aren't better than your average DDS applicant to specialties. This is just based from step 1 scores, vs DDS students who take the CBSE. And, I know for a fact, that dental students study using same resources/ lengthy time periods for the cbse. Also, the point about class rank is school dependent. Several dental schools are P/F, and medical schools with P/F often have internal rankings. But, step 1 is more important anyways, and a lot harder to do well in than doing well in medical school.
I wouldn't know how hard hand work is, but it seems like there's a ceiling based on genetics? Either way, idk how big lab grading is in dental school and how it decides your class rank. If it's a big factor, then okay, point taken: different skillsets.
Also your lab time seems like doing rotations while studying for shelf-exams. Also, "glorified shadowing" can be true. Yes, some preceptors will make your rotations like this. You still need to learn core skills, such as taking history etc.
Now, to the point of "dermatology = cosmetology". That might be the silliest thing I heard lmao. What I have heard is derm = nasty ew I wouldn't want to do that.
