Dr. medicine

[dWiz]

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I met with a family friend, who is a practicing doctor, recently and he started going on and on about how I should try to get into med school and forget about dental school. According to him, the stress, the long hours, the length of education associated with medicine," You get a kick out of it, it's a challenge and more rewarding, if you want to live a relaxed life than go ahead and be a dentist, but if you want a challenging and more rewarding life than go into medicine." He wasn't very convincing but just started to make me think about this........Anyone go thru this deciding stuff..

 

[OzDDS]

hahah

 

[OzDDS]

if you want to live a relaxed life than go ahead and be a dentist

Damn Straight!! 👍

 

[kalix]

I met with a family friend, who is a practicing doctor, recently and he started going on and on about how I should try to get into med school and forget about dental school. According to him, the stress, the long hours, the length of education associated with medicine," You get a kick out of it, it's a challenge and more rewarding, if you want to live a relaxed life than go ahead and be a dentist, but if you want a challenging and more rewarding life than go into medicine." He wasn't very convincing but just started to make me think about this........Anyone go thru this deciding stuff..

DWiz, I think you're just extremely misinformed about the career of dentistry to be honest. I suggest doing some research on what exactly the field of dentistry encompasses in this day and age. And then, after you do your research, go back to your "family friend," and fill him in on how dentistry has evolved, and is still rapidly evolving as a profession. Oral biology research is now incorporated into the curriculum at many top-notch dental schools. So please, careful on how much B.S. you buy into from physicians, especially members of the "baby-boomer" demograph who possess extremely outdated information. 🙄

 

[Biogirl361]

i guess it all depends on what each person finds "rewarding". i think dentists do the public a great service by fixing their teeth. i mean what would people do if there were no dentists. everyone that ever had facial trauma and lost or broke teeth would have to live with it like that forever. people with cavities would just sit there while their teeth rotted away, and then they wouldn't be able to eat, and it would just be miserable. granted medicine is more neccesary than dental care, but i think dentistry is plenty rewarding as far as providing a public health service. also, i myself wouldn't find a stressful and long houred job/life rewarding. i think that having plenty of time to devote to family, hobbies, travel, and other things that are important to my life, more rewarding than long hours at work. making lots of money as a doctor doesn't help much if you don't have as much time to enjoy it and be able to live comfortably while fulfilling yourself in other ways besides work. so to each person their own, some people need to have an action packed work life to be rewarded but some people don't. as far as challenging, i don't know how someone can call another health profession not challenging if they didn't try it, and again, it all depends on what constitutes a challenge for different people. i recommend you do a lot of research on both professions, including shadowing, and do a lot of thinking about what you personally want. don't make opther people's opinions too large of a part of your decision.

 

[Tails you lose]

I agree with biogirl. To each his own. A medical doctor might find dentistry boring. Research scientists would probably find surgery and hospital-based medicine boring. A Wall Street trader would probably find all of these boring. There are different personalities in the world. You will need to consider which profession your personality is best suited, not someone else's.

 

[Dentist 2 be]

Tails You Lose; That's a great analysis. I agree with you 100%

 

[fpr85]

I actually talked to a physician a few days ago and he told me the complete opposite. He said to go into dentistry, that med school for the long hours and stress isn't worth it and that dentists can get paid just as much and even more then some medical specialities. He also said the lifestyle of a dentist was much better (he was telling me how he was always on call, he's an internal med doc)...

So now i'm thinking: med school or dentistry school?

Why did you choose to become a dentist, for any of the above reasons?

 

[beastly115]

New poster here.

I bet that physician is just bitter he didn't become a dentist instead 😉

My father is an ER physician and he said that a dentist would be a better choice because they have the opportunity for a better lifestyle. My father works 12 hour shifts days, nights, and weekends. There's no way I would want to be doing that. The straight up 9-5 hours, for the most part, is one of the main things that attracted me to dentistry.

Personally, I would be 100% satisfied with becoming a dentist, but another person might not feel the same way. To each his own, I say.

 

[sabamedicine]

Okay here's my perspective. First off, you all make vaild points but let's shy away from making this a dentistry vs. medicine debate. For the person who started this post, my heart goes out to you. As a current resident in Neurology, I'll share my insight on the road to becoming a physician (which is a long one and one I'm still on). Medicine and dentistry each have their place. Hell the guy who picks up my garbage is just as important since I wouldn't know what to do with it after piling up. I'm being facetious here but the point is as someone else mentioned "to each his own".
Dentistry and oral health care are as important as medicine because they are interwoven with each other. For example elevated C-protein levels (signs of inflammation) are now used in screening for heart dz. Interestingly enough, poor oral hygiene also is related to increased levels of C-reac protein-leading to the thought that gingival inflammation has systemic consequences. can you have a heart attack because your teeth are in poor condition? It's unlikely, however a general systemic inflammatory response can contribute to it as an indirect result.
Dentistry lends itself to being a 9-5 job because much of what you do is elective. When I'm carrying the stroke pager at my hospital (as well as the staff who are out of residency) I have no choice but to triage these pts and get them their clot busters if the time interval is less than 3 hrs of symptom onset. Point being acute care can be stressful. The opposite side of the spectrum, however, where elective procedures are the norm, is more than just dentistry. If u do dermatology, pathology etc. u can indeed have a 9-5 job. even with Neuro I can choose to do an electrophysiology fellowship and just do EEGs as outpatient and go home by 5pm each day. The opportunities are there in medicine as well. Also dont forget that in medicine and especially some specialties like (I'll use Neurology for example) you dont have to do a "procedure" to make money. Alot of times you see a pt, do consults, offer your opinion, and get paid by only using a thought process rather than procedures for billing purposes. There's pro's and con's to each. Procedures in medicine make more money than consults. You get the idea.
Getting back to the point, the problem when making this decision is that most people lack the experience or information which they base their decision. I'm sure everyone here would agree to shadow a dentist before you commit. Also do as much data gathering as you can. Get more than one person's opinion. Remember, there are two sides to this coin. I know of physicians who wish they had done something different, including myself, but I also know of dentists who are bored with what they do and wish they too had done something different. So it can be a matter of looking at the glass half empty or half full. Good luck to you but I caution that you make a wise decision and not choose based on superficial reasons that might be tempting at first. Those superficial reasons will fade with time and in the end you'll be left with debt and a career you might have regret towards. Good luck to you.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Excellent post, and on that note we'll close the thread. Too many DMD vs. MD threads around, and they turn into an uproar sooner or later. Do a search if you want more info.