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- Thread starter FosterWallace
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As a specialist, I have never once tried to figure out the lost opportunity cost from specializing versus if I stayed a GP. IMO, it's a dumb thing to calculate. I am a specialist because I want to be one. I make enough to pay the bills and do some fun things. Money isn't everything.
Also as a pre-dent, I suggest you not try to discuss this with your dental school professors who are specialists because they are not going to be amused.
Also as a pre-dent, I suggest you not try to discuss this with your dental school professors who are specialists because they are not going to be amused.
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I already know that several of my classmates will be making more money than I will because at 31 I’ll be finishing residency while they’re diving straight to business ownership this year. I will be the last one to buy a car and house. In an alternative reality, the GP version of me probably makes more money.
I couldn’t really care - I get to do surgery, not to mention I never have to border mold or make temps again.
You won’t know if it’s worth it until you’ve done most of dental school and dipped your feet in surgery. There’s no way for you to decide now. Get good grades and survive the first two years of dental school first. Maybe so many people give up the idea of OS when they run the numbers. You'll know if it's for you when you extern.
I couldn’t really care - I get to do surgery, not to mention I never have to border mold or make temps again.
You won’t know if it’s worth it until you’ve done most of dental school and dipped your feet in surgery. There’s no way for you to decide now. Get good grades and survive the first two years of dental school first. Maybe so many people give up the idea of OS when they run the numbers. You'll know if it's for you when you extern.
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IMO specializing in any area of dentistry is better than GP if you’re interested in doing advanced cases in that field.
OMS is a great field, however, many oms for whatever reason tend to limit their scope after residency. So if you’re going to consider oms, and are financially minded like your post suggests, make sure to look closely at what private practice surgeons are doing on a daily basis. Because of that, and many large surgeries being infrequently needed, or debatably necessary/therapeutic, I pulled my application despite receiving interviews. I am now a gp working at a DSO who is ambivalent about my decision, but on balance pretty happy overall. I may still specialize in a different field as I’ve paid off my student loans and don’t own a practice yet. What these past few years as a gp has taught is that the setup of a gp office (length of appointments, hygiene exams, multitasking) is not conducive to doing longer more advanced procedures. You also don’t have a large enough referral base to warrant the cost of specialty equipment. Therefore, the claim I was told as a dental student that you can do whatever you want as a gp with enough CE is not really true practically speaking.
like others have said, I recommend considering what you like and what motivates you rather than just money or opportunity cost.
OMS is a great field, however, many oms for whatever reason tend to limit their scope after residency. So if you’re going to consider oms, and are financially minded like your post suggests, make sure to look closely at what private practice surgeons are doing on a daily basis. Because of that, and many large surgeries being infrequently needed, or debatably necessary/therapeutic, I pulled my application despite receiving interviews. I am now a gp working at a DSO who is ambivalent about my decision, but on balance pretty happy overall. I may still specialize in a different field as I’ve paid off my student loans and don’t own a practice yet. What these past few years as a gp has taught is that the setup of a gp office (length of appointments, hygiene exams, multitasking) is not conducive to doing longer more advanced procedures. You also don’t have a large enough referral base to warrant the cost of specialty equipment. Therefore, the claim I was told as a dental student that you can do whatever you want as a gp with enough CE is not really true practically speaking.
like others have said, I recommend considering what you like and what motivates you rather than just money or opportunity cost.
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I agree with what has been said previously. I am finishing up my second year of surgery training and can tell you that I have a good idea of what I like and don't like but not completely, yet. I am not sure if you have shadowed and/or scrubbed in for orthognathic cases, trauma, infections, and TMJ surgeries but they are different in themselves. The best thing you can do for yourself is do well and try to stay in the top of your class, do well on the CBSE, and also make sure you do externships at 3-4 programs to see the scope of practice that we can perform as OMFS.
As to answer your question specifically, I just turned 30 and will be practicing when I am 33 as an OMFS. This puts some of my classmates 5 years ahead of me in making a salary of at least double of mine each year....I could care less. I naturally tend to think about it sometimes but I love what I am going into and I love my program and attendings. I know that I will have a very solid private practice foundation with great trauma, infection, and orthognathic experience/skillset coming out. I wouldn't let 4-6 more years hinder your decision of specializing if its what you really want to do.
As to answer your question specifically, I just turned 30 and will be practicing when I am 33 as an OMFS. This puts some of my classmates 5 years ahead of me in making a salary of at least double of mine each year....I could care less. I naturally tend to think about it sometimes but I love what I am going into and I love my program and attendings. I know that I will have a very solid private practice foundation with great trauma, infection, and orthognathic experience/skillset coming out. I wouldn't let 4-6 more years hinder your decision of specializing if its what you really want to do.
This is what specializing is all about: never having to border mold or make temps. I’ve also made peace with the fact that I’ll never have to place a rubber dam or reline a denture ever again.
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I've heard people say that they specialized in omfs because they did not like general dentistry and as a dental student they hated crowns, fillings, dentures or whatever. I think specializing to escape general dentistry is a terrible reason. go into a specialty because you like that particular specialty, not to get away from something else. no matter whether you are a general dentist or an omfs, there will be procedures that you like and those that you do not.
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The financial part does bother me occasionally. For me personally, it is really the thought of losing another few years of compounding on my investments.
On average, the student accepted into a specialty program likely would have been a successful GP as well. So yes sometimes those calculations run in my mind about 'lost' income.
But then I do a #15-DO and instantly change my mind...
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You can’t really factor in the “lost income” as a specialist compared to a GP because a GP can really only out produce a specialist by expanding their business...as in opening multiple practices or hiring multiple associates...and at that point you’re just a small business owner...and if that’s the case then you have to compare the lost income of simply becoming a dentist...i mean why didn’t you just spend the 8 years after high school and $400k opening fast food franchises and making a lot more than a dentist would?
IMO a lot of perio procedures are tougher on the dentist’s body from an ergonomics standpoint. Doing #15 DO looks easy compared to the many meticulous procedures that periodontists do. Based on my experiences assisting many Perio residents in clinic, most of them have really bad posture (even 3rd year residents). But maybe it’s because they are residents and still learning, maybe their posture will drastically improve once they graduate. At least I hope so, otherwise they’re going to have a long, painful career.
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Agreed. but overall you do less procedures as you are not doing multiple big surgeries every day. However most GPs are doing multiple fillings, crowns, exos etc every day.
Of course all of us need to be conscious of our posture for the longevity of our career. I am 6'2 and it is often hard to get the chairs etc to adjust properly to my height. I think I will have better posture when I have my own office and can customize everything.
I'm not going to be the one to tell you to focus on dental school ...
I will tell you that money being the primary objective in choosing a specialty will make you very unhappy (and very likely a lousy surgeon)
One thing pre-dental, dental students.... heck everyone else..... don't understand is the sacrifices (many many) made to do what we do.
I encourage you to focus more on the type of procedures we do etc than crunching opportunity cost excel sheets.... If you do choose OMFS know it is a fantastic specialty; do it because you can't imagine doing anything else.
I personally have made many nonfinancial sacrifices to be here, and don't regret it for a second.
I will tell you that money being the primary objective in choosing a specialty will make you very unhappy (and very likely a lousy surgeon)
One thing pre-dental, dental students.... heck everyone else..... don't understand is the sacrifices (many many) made to do what we do.
I encourage you to focus more on the type of procedures we do etc than crunching opportunity cost excel sheets.... If you do choose OMFS know it is a fantastic specialty; do it because you can't imagine doing anything else.
I personally have made many nonfinancial sacrifices to be here, and don't regret it for a second.
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Seems like that is exactly what OP wants though, based on what he's talking about.
I also disagree with people posting a little earlier who've never practiced general dentistry (outside of being a D3/D4 heavily supervised in a school setting) claiming that they specialized to escape border molding/temps/etc. After graduating dental school, almost no dentists will ever do those things again that everyone hated about dental school (getting procedures signed off, pouring impressions, border molding, setting teeth in wax, etc.). It's just never done period outside of school, or done by assistants/labs. Class IIs also do not take an hour in the real world like they do in dental school.
People above claiming they did OMFS to escape this nonexistent "border molding" are being totally disingenuous. What's more, what they're not being honest about with the OP is that OMFS residency is really not for everyone. It will be filled with plating fractures into the night (while your old classmates are out at a restaurant having fun), draining pus at 2am in the ER on a howling pt that cannot be fully anesthetized, catching naps every 45 minutes overnight in the hospital call room between pages, standing up for 5 hours straight in the OR where you need to stay alert and operate, and even for someone who is 100% private practice-only after residency (zero hospital involvement), the risk of causing actual serious harm to a patient during your procedure is 100x greater than doing a #20MO. It's a totally different lifestyle in your youth, and a totally different level of risk to accept in your daily practice later.
Specialize if you really want to specialize and love it beyond everything else. If (as in the case of the OP above) you're pre-dental school thinking about building a business, getting set up in your youth, "opportunity costs" of 4-6 years when you could have set up a business and hired employees to work for you instead, being one of those savvy business owner GPs might be the route for you. Plenty of my classmates in dental school were of that mentality and went ahead with it, and they're pretty pleased with their choices.
A lot of us love our specific specialties, but saying our specific specialty is the right choice 100% of the time for every person who is on the fence is not an answer - OP has stated his thoughts and concerns pretty clearly in the post.
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