MY NAME IS EARL said:
Hi everyone. I just found out that I was accepted to WVU School of Dentistry. However, I have been having second thoughts about not pursuing this avenue and going to Osteopathic Medical School instead.
Would anyone like to comment on the pros and cons of this decision?
Where I live people do not care if you are a MD or a DO so that certainly does not matter. DO's are very much accepted as doctors. (as they should be of course) However, dentists are not considered doctors.
I obviously like what a DO does and what a DDS does so I would like some input from anyone if possible. Furthermore, the large startup costs of a dental practice is worrysome and it does seem much easier to start a medical practice in my area.
Please just comment, I would like some help if possible!
Earl.
Earl, I take a great deal of offense to this post. I can't speak for everyone on SDN, but I believe I speak for a great many when I say that those of us that have chosen to pursue medicine as a profession did not do so lightly. I had to work full time while taking a full load in undergraduate, while working 20 or so hours every week as a volunteer in various activities. I left the house at six in the morning, and got home at 8 at night(when I didn't have to work). I was usually the first one in the library and the last one to be shooed out at night during midterms and finals. I had to study very hard because I test very badly. Many others that were premedical students were right there in the same boat with me, fretting about chemistry midterms, studying in groups, and always trying to do the best we could in order to make our applications to medical schools shine. We would talk at length about the kind of physicians we wanted to be, and what our philosophies about medicine were then and what we wanted them to be. We weren't gunners, because we were always looking for opportunites to help each other out if the need arose.
As the application process rolled around, an entirely new kind of anxiety rolled around with it. Here I was, finally at the penultimate moment. I tried to pour my heart out in my applications while trying not to sound desperate, but the truth was, I WAS desperate. Finally I had reached the point where my fate as a premedical student was no longer in my hands, but up to the subjective judgment of a committee that would see thousands upon thousands of applications each year. How would I be different? What if I wasn't good enough in someone's eyes? I had no backup plan, because I had no backup DREAM.
I think that blithely deciding to pursue medicine produces BAD physicians. Do you REALLY want to be in a position where, if forced to tell the truth, you would have to tell your patients that you were vacillating between medicine and dentristry, and finally picked medicine because the STARTUP COST of the practice was CHEAPER???!!!
Deciding to pick medicine over dentristry for what I consider to be superficial and sheerly cosmetic reasons are why burnout doctors are so dangerous. "I wanted to be called 'Doctor'" is a reason that a FIVE-YEAR-OLD decides to be a doctor, not someone of supposedly sound mind and with a hint of rationality.
In my opinion, you should be NEITHER a dentist NOR a physician. If you become a dentist, you'll always be wondering what it would be like for people to look at you and see the "doctorly" aura, and you'll burn out inside of five years. If you become a physician, it won't be because you have any true wish to become a healer and help the sick, injured, or dying; it will be because you wanted to feel GOOD about yourself.
You're asking us about what profession to choose, but you make it sound as if you're asking whether or not to eat chicken or beef at dinner. Pick one; just don't treat me or anyone I know.