Many agree with you, including me.
Also, the government will always say there is a shortage of dentists and doctors - and will eventually accredit foreign schools and push healthcare industry more into the hands of the insurance companies and corporate management groups and DSO’s.
www.studentloanplanner.com
I still think female dentist factor in new grads will be a challenge:To summarize the whole thread, dentistry is still worth it if:
- You are willing to work hard. You are willing to put in the same amount of work hours as a physician or as most American workers (8 hours/day, 5 days/week).
- You can do things more efficiently. Don't have to finish a molar endo in 20 minutes like Taman. But 2 hours (or 2 separate appointments) is way too long. Patients will start to have doubt on your clinical skills if it takes you that much time.
- You can keep the overhead low. Start cheap. It's better to be understaffed than being overstaffed. Instead of sitting around and pay a hygienist to do cleaning, do the cleanings yourself.
- Be willing to live like a poor student for another 2-3 years after graduation.
Not worth it if:
- You want to have 2-hour lunch. Work 3-4 days/week but want to travel 4-5 times in a year. Don't want to work on the weekends.
- You are slow. Don't want to work at a fast pace corp office. It's impossible to learn to become a fast clinician when you work in a slow low stress office enviroment.
- Only accept cash....no insurance, no medicaid because they don't pay you enough.
- You can't work in a small low overhead office. Have to have at least 2000sf or bigger office with all the bells and whistles.
- You don't want to open your own office and plan work for someone else forever.
This article suggests the top 7 steps to become a rich dentist:
7 Steps to Becoming a Rich Dentist (Even With Loads of Student Debt)
Dentists earn strong salaries but can be held back by their student loan debt. Here's how dentists can build wealth quickly.
To summarize the whole thread, dentistry is still worth it if:
- You are willing to work hard. You are willing to put in the same amount of work hours as a physician or as most American workers (8 hours/day, 5 days/week).
- You can do things more efficiently. Don't have to finish a molar endo in 20 minutes like Taman. But 2 hours (or 2 separate appointments) is way too long. Patients will start to have doubt on your clinical skills if it takes you that much time.
- You can keep the overhead low. Start cheap. It's better to be understaffed than being overstaffed. Instead of sitting around and pay a hygienist to do cleaning, do the cleanings yourself.
- Be willing to live like a poor student for another 2-3 years after graduation.
Not worth it if:
- You want to have 2-hour lunch. Work 3-4 days/week but want to travel 4-5 times in a year. Don't want to work on the weekends.
- You are slow. Don't want to work at a fast pace corp office. It's impossible to learn to become a fast clinician when you work in a slow low stress office enviroment.
- Only accept cash....no insurance, no medicaid because they don't pay you enough.
- You can't work in a small low overhead office. Have to have at least 2000sf or bigger office with all the bells and whistles.
- You don't want to open your own office and plan work for someone else forever.
This article suggests the top 7 steps to become a rich dentist:
7 Steps to Becoming a Rich Dentist (Even With Loads of Student Debt)
Dentists earn strong salaries but can be held back by their student loan debt. Here's how dentists can build wealth quickly.
If they can't put in the same number of work hours as the male dentists (because of this reason, that reason, or other excuses) then no....dentistry is not worth it for them. I know plenty of female dentists who can....ie my wife, my younger sister, the dentist who is a breast cancer survivor, the managing dentist who works a the same corp with me etc.
I am talking about at the beginning when you first start your office....when your office doesn't have a lot of patients. Do as many things yourself as possible. Of course, when you have a fully booked schedule, you need to have enough staff. I've seen many slow offices that are listed for sale.....way too many staff.... and not enough patients....no wonder why they are struggling.
Ofcourse female dentists can’t put in the same hours as male dentists over the course of their career. This is not just for females vs males in dentistry, but for all females in all careers, period.
I'd much rather have the problem of having too many patients (because they all love and trust me) and not having a big enough office space than the problem of having too few patients to fill the chairs and still have to pay rent for the unused space. A busy crowded waiting room is better than an empty one. Where would you want to eat? at a busy restaurant or at the one with many empty tables?
No, none of my female dentist friends had $500k loan and yet they all were willing to work 5-6 days/week after graduation. So why can't today female dentists do the same?
That’s good. But you are missing my point - we are talking today and future dentists. The majority of future grads (today’s pre-dents and beyond) will have $500k+ student loans. Majority will be females.
$500-600k shouldn't be a problem, if you are willing to do put in the same amount of work hours as most American workers (mininum of 8 hours/day, 5 days/week) and have husband, who also works. If you can't, then don't purse dentistry even if it costs you less than $100k. "This is not a math problem. But this is a behavior problem." Said Dave Ramsey.
Yes, definitely. I'd rather marry someone who has $500-1Mil debt but is willing to work hard to pay off the debt than someone who has no debt but doesn't want to work.
It’s somewhat a generational problem. The system is also squeezing the middle class the most, which most dentists are these days - if you account for the student loans.
They are definitely getting squeezed....and therefore, they either have to work like what many of my female dentist friends did after graduation or pick another profession.
This really surprises me. I have met way too many female dentists and female physicians who refused to date and marry blue collar workers such as barbers and nail technicians.
After coming home from work and picking up the kids from their schools, my wife still managed to prepare a nice dinner for us. No need to wait in line at the restaurants, which are usually overbooked on Valentine's Day.
When they are getting older (because of the lenght of their education) and want to marry the guys who share the same religious belief and race, they can't be too picky. These hair and nail guys both have their own shops. They don't make as much as their wives but they helped contribute to the cost of building their wives' dental practices.
To quote Joker from the movie The Dark Knight... Charles and I’s views on the future of the profession “is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object”.
Great point. This leads to dentists cutting corners and over treating patients to not just increase production and make more income, but also to sustain the level of speed an ethical dentist usually works at. If the floor is moving under your feet, you try to find a higher ground. That’s what’s happening to young dentists, they are trying to keep up with their personal debt to income ratio, and in the process, patients are likely to get hurt.
If today new grads are willing to put in the same level of work as mine, they’ll do much better than me. They speak better English. They have better people skills. They don’t need to drastically reduce the treatment fees like me in order to attract more patients. For some reasons, I don’t feel I work that hard. I feel the physicians, general dentists, pharmacists, optometrists, engineers, my ortho assistants etc work a lot harder than me. Perhaps, ortho is too easy that I don’t feel tired at the end of the work day. Perhaps, I love the money too much and I would feel more depressed if I am not busy enough and make too little. A fully booked day actually excites me more than a slow day. I hate slow days.
As a parent, I over-worry about everything. My kids have never faced any financial hardship in their lives before; therefore, I don’t expect them to have the same motivation like me. My wife and I are preparing for the worst scenario and that is if none of them wants to go to college. But I've always told my son that if you want to marry a good person like your mom, you have to have a good stable job.....and act like the man of the house. Noboby wants to marry a loser who has no plan. We’ve worked hard to make sure that we save enough for our kids and for our future retirement.
I recently got back to playing the classical guitar again. I haven’t touched it since my graduation from dental school. I’ll be debt free by the end of this year and plan to take more time off from work. I need to get back to an old hobby to keep my brain active. I’d go crazy if I have so much free time doing nothing at home. Now my son knows that he’s not the only person in the house who can play a musical instrument.
I’ll be the first to admit I was financially illiterate and naive to changes in dentistry. I didn't know what didn’t know. I graduated undergrad in 2016. I shadowed 200 hours in various dental offices while in undergrad. No one ever said a word to me about debt (besides go to the cheapest school), insurance, DSO’s. My predental advisor asked if I have considered becoming a PA instead, but didn’t tell me why I should shy away from dentistry. I somehow visited SDN dozens of times while getting ready to take the DAT and missed any articles on any of these issues we are talking about. I chose one of the cheapest dental schools in the US and will still graduate just under 300k in debt even though I’ve been budgeted and structured through dental school, granted I have a family and my wife does not work at this time.
I don’t think I can earn a good income by making youtube videos because I can’t speak well in front of the camera. I don’t have the patience to spend hours after hours editing the video clips. I don’t have the creative mind to come up with new ideas every day in order to make the videos more interesting and to attract more viewers. For me, it’s much easier to make $$$ doing orthodontics….everything in ortho is simple and repetitive and the assistants do all the hard work for me. I neither need to speak nor write perfect English in order to become a successful orthodontist.
I too know a lot of female dentists who work less than 3 days a week. It’s because of their good incomes that allow them to work fewer days than most women at their age. My wife is among these female dentists. She used to work 6 days/week. When she was pregnant with our son, she still had to drive 60 miles each way to one of the offices. She could only took 3-week maternity leave for each of our children because she’s an office owner. But now with most of the debts paid off and with my income, she can afford to work 2.5 days/week, 2-3 hours a day. If 75% of the employed women can work full time, why can’t female dentists do the same?
That’s the beauty of this profession. That’s the beauty of being a dentist owner. You don’t need to work 5 days/week and still make more than people who don’t have a college degree and have to work 5 days/week. With $4-500k debt, today/future grad dentists may have to work 3-4 years longer than the older dentists, who graduated 15+ years ago with only $200-250k debt. 5-6 days/week workload that I suggested on my previous posts should only be temporary (maybe only 3-4 years) for today/future new grads. Hopefully in 3-4 years…..once they reduce the debt amount (using Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball method) to the same level as what the older dentists owed, they can cut down their work days to 3 days/week and should be able to have the same lifestyle that the older dentists are currently enjoying right now.
It’s true that you don’t have to be a dentist in order to make a 6-figure income. My real estate agent makes more money than me. A famous singer makes more money than me. Famous youtubers make more money than me. But the chance of making a 6-figure as a dentist or a doctor is 100%.
Per ADA.
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Most of the pre-dents I have advised over the past 5-10 years at my office averaged $10-40k in undergrad debt. All of that pre-DS debt were in compounding interest, and probably went up by another $10-15k after DS.
