Do we have any AD or recently separated dentists here?

[pmoney]

While the medicine folks seem to have a wealth of opinions, I have yet to really see any dentist on this forum that is not currently in or maybe 1year out of HPSP.

I do think that as a dentist you avoid a lot of the problems facing the medical folks. You may end up in a drill and fill unit with lots of specialists who poach all the 'other' cases and still have to deal with clipboard commandos but overall, it is more enticing than medicine would be.

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[LazurasDC]

can you explain what you mean by drill and fill units and clipboard commandos?

 

[pmoney]

can you explain what you mean by drill and fill units and clipboard commandos?

clipboard commandos are your O6 nurses and accessory MSC officers who usually have done no real work in their entire career and are pretty much clinically incompetent. however, they have strong adminstrative skills (or at least they suck up to the higher ups well and have stayed in service long enough). There are plenty of docs and dentists who start doing very little actual clinical work once they rise in rank as well. I'm not saying these are bad people but at least from what I've read i nthe mil med forum they are a pain in the ass.

drill and fill units are those where sometimes the new guys get stuck doing fillings and more fillings with some extractions thrown in. They don't get a lot of endo, crown and bridge, etc because there are a lot of specialists in the big units that poach the cases. But, considering there is such a shortage I'm guessing this doesn't happen nearly as often as it might have before.

 

[Ankylosed]

clipboard commandos are your O6 nurses and accessory MSC officers who usually have done no real work in their entire career and are pretty much clinically incompetent. however, they have strong adminstrative skills (or at least they suck up to the higher ups well and have stayed in service long enough). There are plenty of docs and dentists who start doing very little actual clinical work once they rise in rank as well. I'm not saying these are bad people but at least from what I've read i nthe mil med forum they are a pain in the ass.

drill and fill units are those where sometimes the new guys get stuck doing fillings and more fillings with some extractions thrown in. They don't get a lot of endo, crown and bridge, etc because there are a lot of specialists in the big units that poach the cases. But, considering there is such a shortage I'm guessing this doesn't happen nearly as often as it might have before.

Just to chyme in from my experience in the Navy, the clipboard commandos can be as low of a rank as O4. This is the rank where they start to give some of the nurses admin positions such as Division officer or "Divo". I can only speak about the OR b/c I was a Surgical Tech. Our former Divo was so fat that it looked like she had two racoons wrestling in her pants when she walked.. She got out of the PRT (physical readiness test) a few times and failed a few other times. The run portion is 1.5 miles, usually 3/4 mile turnaround and come back. As we were reaching the home stretch to the finish line, we were meeting up with her, but she was on the way to the turnaround! The emergency van had to pick her up.. We affectionatly call this type of woman a "sea donkey" in the Navy..