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- Jan 25, 2017
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Do you fear things going the way of optometry and pharmacy?
6 out of 10, abrupt onset, come and go, duration is a couple hours or a few days, frequency is a few times a month, started 1st year of dental school, symptoms are relieved by hearing bad reviews and complaints from patients.Do you fear things going the way of optometry and pharmacy?
While they will probably be much smarter than graduating dentists of the past, I feel more and more of them will be less inclined to want to run their own business. Also, and I am NOT being sexist, but I feel like a larger percent of newly graduating female dentists compared to their male counterparts will be more likely to be happy working for a corporation. Combine this with massive amounts of debt, and you have a recipe to turn dentistry into a corporation that cares more about profit than patients.
This is going to be long... sorry.This is going to be a little extreme...
I could talk for ages on this. Very interested to see people's opinions.
I hate the idea of corporate dentistry. There, I said it. Absolutely hate it. It puts my stomach in knots.
Am I afraid of it, though? No, not necessarily.
What I am afraid of is this: As dental schools get more and more competitive because of the attractiveness of dentistry as a career prospect, it is going to get harder and harder to get in. I have a feeling that the more academically focused dental schools become, the less common sense-oriented graduating dentists will be. While they will probably be much smarter than graduating dentists of the past, I feel more and more of them will be less inclined to want to run their own business. Also, and I am NOT being sexist, but I feel like a larger percent of newly graduating female dentists compared to their male counterparts will be more likely to be happy working for a corporation. Combine this with massive amounts of debt, and you have a recipe to turn dentistry into a corporation that cares more about profit than patients.
Corporate dentistry, I feel, needs to be fought by dentists. We do not need to let dentistry go where pharmacy and optometry are now.
An already mentioned point of contention is this, though: Compared to pharmacy and Optometry, dentistry is EXTREMELY INTIMATE. It may not matter than the pharmacist at Walgreens is a jerk who hates his job. You hardly ever even talk to a pharmacist when getting medication. You talk to the pharmacy technician, they run your insurance, charge you, and usually give you a cheaper price than traditional pharmacies. Dentistry is not this way. Dentists do much more than count pills. Not only do you have to be intimate with patients, and thus be a people person, but you also have a trade and acquired set of physical skills that can't be standardized the way counting is, or reading is. You ARE a surgeon of teeth, that simple. Pharmacy and optometry can't compare to that.
Last thing, you cannot feel disdain for corporate anymore than you can for small groups, public health clinics, hospitals, or any other practice model because it really is just another practice model. Do some of them push for certain treatments or push dentists to do certain things? Probably, but like I said earlier, dentists should be working to improve this. It is the dentist that has the final say because it is their license and their integrity is the only thing that can compromise a treatment plan. If they don't like the pressure or can't stand up to it if they disagree, they should quit. For the most part, it is just simply another practice model that seems to fit a millennial life-style.
Yes, you certainly are putting a lot of this in the extreme case. And you're right, I can't tell you what you can and cannot have disdain for, but what you have disdain for just doesn't make sense to me. It sounds like you have a bias against them for some reason because your logic only works for the extreme cases. It doesn't make sense to hate all dental schools just because some of them are for-profit private schools and you disagree with that. It doesn't make sense to hate organized religion and all Christian churches just because some of them are mega TV churches that make millions and you disagree with that. Those aren't perfect analogies, but you get what I'm saying. Some corporate offices have non-dentists as the owners or CEOs (but not all) and you may disagree with that. So fight that aspect. There are ways. It is illegal for those corporate offices to open up in some states. Advocate for those laws in your own state. Some corporates have credit cards that they use to lure in unsuspecting patients and you may disagree with that. So fight that aspect. But realize that that credit card, if used properly and properly researched by the patient, might be the only way that they are able to receive any treatment at all. Advocate for access to care, raising Medicaid reimbursement rates or increasing funds to loan repayment programs for dentists in underserved areas.This is the one thing you said that I have to disagree with. I don't think you can say what I can and can't have disdain for. Are there corrupt CEOs at the top of hospitals with money signs in their eyes? Yes, definitely. But I don't get sick at the idea of hospitals taking advantage of doctors and patients, because I don't think of hospitals this way.
-Hospitals have their place for both doctors and dentists. The capital required to provide cutting edge healthcare is out of the realm for private practice doctors, and thats why hospitals are so necessary. Not to mention 10,000 other reasons. Oral surgery and hospitals go hand in hand.
-Public health clinics have their place helping people who usually could otherwise not get help.
-Small groups provide a business model where some dentists/owners can focus on business aspects, and others just practice dentistry.
I, personally, would hate to work for corporate if I knew that some businessmen way above me that never went to dental school are making decisions that affect the people's health that I am working on(This is not necessarily the case for all corporate; I know this is a rash generalization). In fact, a personal reason that dentistry attracted me was the ability to be your own boss(A common theme among tons of us on here, I would like to think). And to segway this into an example that sticks out in my mind, Aspen Dental will issue a credit card to someone who can't afford work that they don't need. I have read/heard instances where Aspen dental would push extractions and full dentures rather than a few fillings, just to make sure they would make the money then, not having to worry about patients returning, without the dentist being able to recommend the decisions. If you aren't familiar with this, I could look it up and share with you through PM.
But to even have the idea that the person running a dentistry not being a dentist just gives me chills. It is very easy to make financial decisions when you sit at a desk, only see numbers and profits. I think corporate dentistry should be fought by dentists because of that. Why let someone who never could have made it to dental school make your profession in healthcare their method to get rich? That is NOT what healthcare is about. I guess what I mean is, I do have disdain at the thought of corporate dentistry because it seems so susceptible to corruption.
So why are young dentists still going corporate? I guess because of the ridiculous loans, because of the saturation in "desirable places to live", and because of the stigma/lifestyle that is associated with being a dentist. I feel like some of it is the thinking of our generation, but instead of letting a dental corporation take advantage of the surplus of new graduates in desperate need of money, the problem needs to be fixed before that point. Because if it continues, it could spiral to a point where the corporations have a monopoly over dentistry, and then it will be where pharmacy is now.
I want to try and make the case that the market for corporate dentistry exists not because of expansive, multi-million dollar equipment(as in the case of hospitals), or in the lack of will to want to learn about business(there are group practices with dentists who do business work and others who don't), but because of the extreme need of new graduates to start paying off their loans combined with over saturation in desirable areas near dental schools. It seems that dental schools are getting too expensive, and the idea is born that if dental school cost 300k, then I have to make at least 100k per year to stay afloat. This type of thinking will cause a balloon effect and eventually it will burst, just like the housing bubble in 2008.
Also, I don't think the millennial lifestyle is necessarily a good one to have. I, myself, have millennial tendencies - eating while doing 4 other things - looking things up on the internet rather than calling an office or going in person - searching for jobs on the internet rather than by word of mouth. Dentists who are retiring, at least in my area, do not know this millennial way of life. In the future, our generation of dentists will definitely have to learn to market themselves online more than ever before, but on the flip side of that, the way to get in with a practice that has a retiring dentist is not by looking up openings online. It is by word of mouth, "knowing people", networking, however you want to think of it. Just because keen businessmen can do this does not mean that dental graduates can't.
Again, I am not even in dental school yet, but just thinking about the future.
Obviously I am putting a lot of this in an extreme case. I also want to reiterate that I am a dental school applicant, and my opinion probably holds little to no value, and for good reason. I definitely am not wanting to step on toes. I just want to understand the situation that new graduates are entering in to and get people's ideas on them.