TLDR; know who you are, decide who you want to be, pick a career, live your life. it really is that simple.
OP, whether or not you truly belong in dentistry is yet to be seen and it may very well be the place for you, but from an OMS3 perspective, this feels categorically the OMS1 version of the sunday scaries. you've gotten way better advice than my measly freshly-minted OMS3 self could ever give, but having *very* recently been in your shoes and having had similar scaries (i legit searched "should i really go to med school" on SDN at 4am the morning i was moving for school lololol) I wanted to give my little bit of insight, as I wish it was what someone would've given me when I was in your shoes.
you may very well be destined for dentistry, but i would caution you from making that decision now, because you would be making it from bad data. evidence of that to me are the following statements you've made:
the idea of working insane hours as a physician who may likely end up in something like IM
many people have given you advice that you have every opportunity to pursue optho, and nothing will hinder you from doing that if you want. also, many people have given you advice that you really don't have to work insane hours in IM. even at the resident level, there are many rural/community based residencies where the residents are working wayyy less than other places.
It’s exhausting and the fact that I have to work 10x harder as a DO student
as many have stated, this isn't true. i guarantee you our MD peers are grinding just as hard to match optho. and as someone well into the pursuit of a competitive specialty my experience is that we don't have to work "harder" per se, just smarter and more strategically.
I despise the rat race to specialize.
kindly, you're an OMS1, you don't know what the rat race is to specialize. i don't either hahah. i know the things i have to do to match the specialty i want, but i certainly wasn't as aware of that as an OMS1 as I am now. also, its only a rat race to people that make it a rat race. which brings me to me next point.
The issue is I see myself getting really burnt out in this profession
because *many* people with much more experience than you and I have given you sage advice that dentistry and medicine can burn you out equally, i don't think your issue is you see yourself getting burnt out in this profession. i think your issue is you are anxious about getting burnt out. period.
i think our culture has taught us that the antidote to burnout is finding the magical career that will satisfy your every desire and hope in life, and in my experience, that magical career doesn't exist. even if dentistry is your magical passion in life, passion fades. and in *any* career, what are you gonna fall back on when that passion fades?
i present to you passions less exciting but much more long lasting cousin: discipline. if you don't want to get burnt out in medicine or dentistry, discipline yourself to habits that won't let you do that. i think personally thats why there are so many struggles with mental health at the med/dent student and resident level. people have so much initial passion for medicine/dentistry, and they're told that thats why they should be in medicine, because they love it more than anything else. so then they run full speed with no discipline to healthy habits, working out, therapy, wellness, outside hobbies, mindset, etc. because medicine/dentistry is their undying passion! and that passion lasts for 2 years, 5 years. but when the bedrock of your life's purpose is something as fleeting as passion, it's an incredibly, incredibly dangerous place to be when that passion inevitably fades.
so if you don't want to burnout, do the things that keep you from burning out. build an identity outside of medicine. i guarantee you are a valuable and cool person outside of what career path you choose. work out, eat well, go to therapy, build friendships, call your family. at least at the med student level, i can tell you it is 100% possible.
I think I’m just surrounded by so many negative physicians.
The dentists I know just seem so much happier
They make it seem like a cushy 200K+ 4 day gig
I’ve shadowed just seem so happy and not super stressed like the physicians I know personally.
It wasn’t until I worked with multiple physicians for a job
all this is just big sweeping assumption based on bad data. one of the red flags to me reading this was where you said you worked with multiple physicians at "a" job. sounds like the culture of that place is... not so great? maybe its not the physicians but the place. again you are clumping all your physician experiences as negative, and all your dentistry experiences as positive. you need to get more positive physician experiences and more negative dentistry experiences before you can make an educated decision. otherwise based on the incredible testimony you've been given in this thread, you're just falling into the "grass is greener" fallacy.
also as others have said, there is no easy path to making good money in life. there are plenty of dentists AND physicians that *seem* like they have cushy "4 day a week 200K+ jobs" now, but it was NOT cushy to get there. be it dentistry or medicine, you're gonna have to WORK. and if you don't want to do that and only want to work and study 32 hours a week beginning now, thats
totally fine. and there are plenty of careers where you can do that. but they aren't gonna pay you 200K and they aren't gonna be medicine or dentistry.
I’ll never be able to pursue this path ever if I drop it now.
honestly it’s freaking me out
residency makes me anxious
things to match competitive makes me anxious.
suits me better makes me the most anxious.
i'll end this novel by saying as someone who was in your shoes 2 years ago, with so much empathy, I didn't have a career problem. I had an anxiety problem. and an indecision problem. and an identity problem. i wonder if you might as well.
who are you outside of medicine? what keeps you alive in this world? what do you value most (outside of your career)? these are the things that will keep you going regardless of what career you choose. when i figured that out during OMS1, i became *infinitely* happier, massively more passionate about medicine and my life in general. there's a quote that a good thing becomes a bad thing when a good thing becomes an ultimate thing. so don't make your ultimate identity in life your career.
every med/dent student at some point has the "I want to quit and become a sourdough baker" moment. sometimes its a "I want to quit and become a dentist" moment. and again maybe you really are destined for dentistry. but before you make a decision you need to figure out who you are, what your purpose in life is outside your career, and
get good data. gather the facts, not more assumptions.
then make a decision and dont look back. in the same way Goro says "the med student makes the med school," i would say the person makes the career. if you want to build a good, well-balanced life, that has 1000x more to do with you than the career you choose.
