Interested in perio and ortho but no stellar record. specializing still possible?

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fakebun

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Hello all
I graduated in 2017 and have been a practicing dentist since. I am thinking about perio or ortho residency but this thought didn't come until very recently.

I've worked in mostly DSOs or private group practice that behaves like DSO and for the most part of my professional life I've been assigned offices that I'm by myself in, with no mentors.

I guess my question is without good (or any) letters of recommendation and my GPA/Class rank was not stellar, at this point in my life how can I increase my chance to have a good shot at either of those two residencies? Or this path of specializing is dead the moment I let my grades drop in dental school?

thank you
 
fakebun said:
ehh like 3.3 and 129/137. never thought about specializing until now....
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Ortho will be possible if you do a 1 year fellowship first followed by 3 year residency at one of those expensive schools that offer them (Jacksoville, georgia, CTOR, etc).

Perio is a lot more doable.

Honestly if you are making 250k+ and no debt I would not specialize. The lost income/debt is too substantial.
 
Why do you want to specialize? It is because you hate working as a GP? Is it because you want higher pay? Have you been able to save enough money (after 7-8yrs of working) to pay for either ortho or perio residency? Or do you have to borrow more? Do you have any debt?

I don’t know how hard it is to get into either perio or ortho since I’ve been out of school for so long. I think you’ll have better chance for perio. Ortho has always been one of the toughest specialties to get in despite the fact that there are more available seats now than before (due to the openings of new programs).

Keep in mind that being a specialist doesn’t mean that you’ll have easier time finding good paying jobs. It doesn’t mean your job will be easier than what you have right now. Most places want you to produce for them. If you can’t produce, they will let you go and hire another doctor. At the corp, where I work at, they have let a lot of associate orthodontists go because they were too slow.

My nephew has just completed his perio residency. So far, he only got 2 job offers….only one day per month at each of these 2 offices. To keep himself busy, he is applying for GP jobs as well. He doesn’t mind working as a GP because he knows he’ll have to start paying back the student loans soon. Before perio, he did a year of GPR so he has a lot restorative experience.

It’s the same for my wife, who is also a periodontist. She got her first job at 3 GP offices (owned by the same GP owner), where she did mostly implant placements. Her first job paid her $500/day. This was in the early 2000s when the associate GP only made $350-400/day. So she got paid just a little bit more than the associate GPs. And this job didn’t provide enough patients to keep her busy. She had to travel to other offices to get more days. She created job for herself by buying an existing perio office. It’s a tough beginning. Until now, she still has to travel to 6 different offices (including her own). But she’s glad that she specialized and doesn’t have to work as a GP.
 
charlestweed said:
Why do you want to specialize? It is because you hate working as a GP? Is it because you want higher pay? Have you been able to save enough money (after 7-8yrs of working) to pay for either ortho or perio residency? Or do you have to borrow more? Do you have any debt?

I don’t know how hard it is to get into either perio or ortho since I’ve been out of school for so long. I think you’ll have better chance for perio. Ortho has always been one of the toughest specialties to get in despite the fact that there are more available seats now than before (due to the openings of new programs).

Keep in mind that being a specialist doesn’t mean that you’ll have easier time finding good paying jobs. It doesn’t mean your job will be easier than what you have right now. Most places want you to produce for them. If you can’t produce, they will let you go and hire another doctor. At the corp, where I work at, they have let a lot of associate orthodontists go because they were too slow.

My nephew has just completed his perio residency. So far, he only got 2 job offers….only one day per month at each of these 2 offices. To keep himself busy, he is applying for GP jobs as well. He doesn’t mind working as a GP because he knows he’ll have to start paying back the student loans soon. Before perio, he did a year of GPR so he has a lot restorative experience.

It’s the same for my wife, who is also a periodontist. She got her first job at 3 GP offices (owned by the same GP owner), where she did mostly implant placements. Her first job paid her $500/day. This was in the early 2000s when the associate GP only made $350-400/day. So she got paid just a little bit more than the associate GPs. And this job didn’t provide enough patients to keep her busy. She had to travel to other offices to get more days. She created job for herself by buying an existing perio office. It’s a tough beginning. Until now, she still has to travel to 6 different offices (including her own). But she’s glad that she specialized and doesn’t have to work as a GP.
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What is typical day's production for your wife look like, and what is her % compensation of that at these offices? Just curious
 
Torshammer said:
What is typical day's production for your wife look like, and what is her % compensation of that at these offices? Just curious
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Office 1: 2 days/month. Guaranteed $900/day or 45% of the production, whichever is greater. My wife splits the implant cost with the owner. She does implants, 3rd molar extractions, and other perio related surgeries. On some very slow days (happened once or twice a year), there were only enough patients for half a day…the production weren’t too great…they sent her home early and paid her half day, which was $450. But most of the time, she produces a lot more than the required daily $2k production.....as high as $13k a day.

Office 2: 1 day/month. 50% of the production

Office 3 (my sister’s office): 2 days/month. 50% of the production. My wife pays for the implant cost.

Office 4: 2 days/month. She gets 50%. She does mostly 3rd molar extractions. And a few canine exposure cases for the orthodontist co-owner. Zero implant. Zero perio related procedure.

Office 5: the owner only calls her when there is an implant case (5-6 times a year). The owner pays her $1200 for each implant placement. I think the owner charges his patients $1600-1700 for each implant. The owner and my wife split the implant cost.

Office 6: the owner only calls her when there is a crown lengthening procedure (3-4 times/yr). The owner pays her $1000 for each crown-lenthening.

Office 7: It’s my wife’s own office. She works here 3 days/month.

So she works 10-11 days a month.
 
I'm at a point in life where just nothing is going well so I look at specialty as a possible alternative path that will solve my problems with general dentistry. Deep inside I know specialty has their own problems and it's not meant as an escape from general dentistry.

won't bore you guys with my struggle (also don't want to be screenshotted and shared on many facebook dental groups)

I only thought about perio because I've always liked the surgery part of dentistry but not enough to go into OMFS. Ortho just seems chill but I know for a fact that i will miss the action.

After the last few days of some critical thinking I don't think i'll be applying for perio or ortho. I've shifted my focus to GPR to strengthen all aspects of general dentistry, or just pay for live patient CE multiple times until enough practice is achieved.

thank you all for your input
 
fakebun said:
I'm at a point in life where just nothing is going well so I look at specialty as a possible alternative path that will solve my problems with general dentistry. Deep inside I know specialty has their own problems and it's not meant as an escape from general dentistry.

won't bore you guys with my struggle (also don't want to be screenshotted and shared on many facebook dental groups)

I only thought about perio because I've always liked the surgery part of dentistry but not enough to go into OMFS. Ortho just seems chill but I know for a fact that i will miss the action.

After the last few days of some critical thinking I don't think i'll be applying for perio or ortho. I've shifted my focus to GPR to strengthen all aspects of general dentistry, or just pay for live patient CE multiple times until enough practice is achieved.

thank you all for your input
Click to expand...
For the love of God don’t go back and do a GPR after having practiced for 8 years. Do some CE if you want to learn something new, but it sounds like you just aren’t in love with dentistry more than anything. Rather than going to more schooling to get deeper in dentistry, invest wisely and find a way out.
 
Pablo Sanchez said:
For the love of God don’t go back and do a GPR after having practiced for 8 years. Do some CE if you want to learn something new, but it sounds like you just aren’t in love with dentistry more than anything. Rather than going to more schooling to get deeper in dentistry, invest wisely and find a way out.
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my problem is that I am not good at endo and iffy on extractions/implants. in socal almost all associate position requires you to do 3rd molar/implant/molar endo.

****ty jobs and not good at those makes me not confident in terms of treatment planning. only working part time means i dont make enough to go to good meaningful CEs. I'm definitely not mentally strong like my classmates that didn't do any live patients implant CEs yet brave enough to start practicing on his own patients.

Thats why I considered a GPR, but considering good ones are impossible to get in and the other ones are like 5th year of dschool, i might as well borrow money and take a live patient extraction course 3-4 times
 
fakebun said:
my problem is that I am not good at endo and iffy on extractions/implants. in socal almost all associate position requires you to do 3rd molar/implant/molar endo.

****ty jobs and not good at those makes me not confident in terms of treatment planning. only working part time means i dont make enough to go to good meaningful CEs. I'm definitely not mentally strong like my classmates that didn't do any live patients implant CEs yet brave enough to start practicing on his own patients.

Thats why I considered a GPR, but considering good ones are impossible to get in and the other ones are like 5th year of dschool, i might as well borrow money and take a live patient extraction course 3-4 times
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I learned how to get good at surgical extractions and doing endo by going rural and having a great mentor. Leave So Cal, find a great mentor, and make a lot of money. Then, once your skills have increased in a couple of years, go back. When I was rural too, I had a great relationship with my endodontist. He always told me I could come shadow, and he'd help me with any questions.
 
JacquesVallee said:
I learned how to get good at surgical extractions and doing endo by going rural and having a great mentor. Leave So Cal, find a great mentor, and make a lot of money. Then, once your skills have increased in a couple of years, go back. When I was rural too, I had a great relationship with my endodontist. He always told me I could come shadow, and he'd help me with any questions.
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ya unfortunately i can't leave socal right now. i'm thinking about volunteering but it doesn't sit right with me knowing that sure i'd be helping but i'm also getting practices....
 
There was a person I graduated with who was middle of the class and didn't even get an interview at the georgia ortho program. That being said, I would rather fake my own death and flee the country than go to that georgia program. You would probably leave that program hardly competent at doing ortho and the amount of debt you would inquire would probably set you back further financially that you could possibly imagine - doing general would probably be better financially for you at this point. Then, you would graduate ortho and realize that it was nothing like what you imagined it would be.
 
Bentley242 said:
GSO is now easily over $500k total.
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Big Hoss
 
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