12YearOldKid said:
I just saw a survey by the ADA about dentist career satisfaction. I don't remember exact numbers, but something like 90% (yes, that high) were "satisfied" or better with their career. 60-70% were "very satisfied" or better. That's pretty good compared to the AMA survey from a few years back (heard this one on Dr. Dean Adel show) where over 50% of MDs were dissatisfied and would not recommend medicine as a career to a young person.
I'm going to go out on a limb though and say that I think the difference has as much to do with the nature of the job as it has to do with the types of people who choose medicine or dentistry. Most students approach dentistry thinking "That's a pretty cool job. I like working with my hands; I like people. And the money ain't bad either." It's a pretty laid back approach to life.
But so many pre-med students claim to feel some sort of mystical "calling" to medicine. In their minds, they completely over-glamorize the work that they will be doing. They begin to define their entire lives around medicine. Medicine is who they are and other aspects of their lives tend to fade into the background. That is just too much to expect from a job. Now, I know not all pre-meds have these unrealistic expectations, but in my experience many do.
I think if you are realistic about what you are getting in to and what your working conditions will be, then you could be happy doing either. For me, dentistry is a great field, and I'm glad I chose it. Just be sure you find out what it's really about before you jump in.
beautiful
👍
to the OP:
please make your judgement independently and use commen sense and realism. i say this because the post-med forum may not be the best way to know whether or not the meds woul do it all over again. although most SDNers will say that i am one distrustfull son of a gun, but here 's my opinion about meds and post-meds:
[oh by the way, i hope you realize that 99.99999% of pre-meds who claim the "calling" or the "my sister had a great doc when we wewre kids and now i wanna be like him/her" are lying. they use these unimaginative lies in their ps and their inTview and off ocurse the inTviewers know but it just goes on. pretty f-up if you ask me.]
most WILL tell you that they would NOT do it again.
in reality, most WOULD actually do it again. they tell you otherwise just to be cool and because meds tend to be territorial. their territoriality makes them feel a bit uneasy if you wanna get into medicine. they perhaps feel that they occupy a godly position in society and they dont want to see you share that position with them.
on the other hand, there is a minority of meds who would truly not do it again, and who are truly sick of medicine. i feel bad for those because med is a life long commitment! there's no turnin back!
here is what i think of medicine, as it is practiced in the U.S, the country of economics, litigation and precision:
it is a very challenging, ,interesting, needed, exciting and intellectually stimulating job. but it is f-ed up in this country; it mostly attracts the wrong crowd and it deprives the doc from every semblance of a lifestyle and social life. it, for the most part, occupies a ****y situaiton among all other healthcare jobs (in terms of hours, pay, insurance, politics, paperwork, liability, autonomy) and it is bizarrely oversexed and overglamorized in our media-driven culture (house, ER, gross anatomy...etc). the glamor blinds people from seeing the ugly truth about the practice of medicine in the U.S. a truth that is totally out of tune with reality. still, american men and women continue to be mezmerized by the sight of a doc with a lab coat and a stethoscope.
so here's the conclusion:
in medicine, here is what you DONT get:
1-money (not worth it for the effort you put in, cannot make time to spend it, let alone insurance)
2-lifestyle (think of hours that docs and surgeons work, the after-6-pm phone calls "it is very common for a doc to be summened by the hospital during a party taking place at say 9 pm!!!"
guys, i volunteered at the cardiac cath. lab of NYU years ago and there, i made friends with the fellows, who were nice for the most part. the fellow (they had been fellows forever) would hardly have time for themselves. so after work, one of the nurses threw a party at a club downtown manhattan. all of us went there (volunteers, chief administrator, secretary, docs, fellows, a couple of medstudents, nurses and a couple of cath lab supplies sales persons) it was 9 pm and everybody was dancing; two of them got beeped and called back and then said to us that they were needed in the cath lab. i swear one of them was in tears over the inconvenience and the despicable incursion on his recreation time.
note: 1 and 2 could be mitigated in dermatology, radiology, anaesthesiology and pathology, but keep in mind that those are not real intellectually challenging specialties.
3-piece of mind (by the time you're done with med-school, you become wary, cynical, a bit dissapointed and concerned and by the time you're done with residency, you will look older than your age, you will suffer from chronic sleep deprivatiion and you will have become jaded and you will compensate for all that through arrogance and just rudeness)
satisfation (failed expectations due to lifestyle issues, length of time spent in becoming a surgeon and monotonousness of the work in internal meidicine (it is not rewarding to sit at a desk, performing physical exams and prescribing medication all day)).
and here is what you'll get:
glamor!!! and that's it!!! (mommy and daddy will be proud, friends will look highly to you, when you're in the street or on the subway or bus, people will stare at your coat and stethoscope and you'll feel ok when you say you're a doc on a date (that's if you have time for a date). in other words, being a doc pleases people who surround you but hardly pleases you.
dentistry on the other hand provides you all that medicine denies you (see above). what dentistry does not provide you (although it is changing now as people become more aware of reality), is the glamor.
at the end of the day, i dont give a darn whether or not people dig me, worship me, wanna be me or glamorize me. what i want is to be left alone after 5 or 6 pm, make good money and live a fulfilling life. i wanna live for my own self first, and then for my loved ones. i have one life to live so it would be such a shame if i spent it in the sickening walls of the hospital, being harassed by patients, insurers and administrators on a daily bases. i was born free and thus i shall become my own master. not the slave of the system, the hospital and the insirance companies. never!!!
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