Is residency necessary to open a pediatric only practice?

[ctfuturepedo]

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I have seen a few posts that claim that any dentist can perform as a specialist. Why then would dentists even bother doing a residency? To have the expanded knowledge base? Or the credentials? I want to work with children only, and had always assumed that I would have to do a pedo residency, but I was just curious.

 

[War Eagle]

I have seen a few posts that claim that any dentist can perform as a specialist. Why then would dentists even bother doing a residency? To have the expanded knowledge base? Or the credentials? I want to work with children only, and had always assumed that I would have to do a pedo residency, but I was just curious.

Uuhhh, maybe to have the sufficient skills to be "specialist". To be able deal with the referrals that other dentists can't/don't want to deal with. To be able to compete against those that did do a residency.

 

[aphistis]

I have seen a few posts that claim that any dentist can perform as a specialist. Why then would dentists even bother doing a residency? To have the expanded knowledge base? Or the credentials? I want to work with children only, and had always assumed that I would have to do a pedo residency, but I was just curious.

Residency is the difference between being allowed to work as a specialist and being able to work as one.

 

[gryffindor]

If you're good with kids, you can see tons of them all day. Lots of GPs who like kids see them. However, you may have difficulty getting hospital privileges to take cases to the OR by not being a specialist because you haven't had additional training managing cases in the OR which you would definitely do in a residency.

 

[setdoc7]

I share my office with the director of the pedo residency at my hospital. I work with him as we run both the GPR and Pedo programs. The Pedo residents get an enormous amount of additional training, which makes them a specialist. I think GP's can do the basic work, but by no means are trained as pediatric dentists, and no amount of CE will cover the two solid years of training.
Forget about no OR training, the lack of training in office sedation and behavior management is probably enough to make a huge difference.

 

[rarm1]

I have seen a few posts that claim that any dentist can perform as a specialist. Why then would dentists even bother doing a residency? To have the expanded knowledge base? Or the credentials? I want to work with children only, and had always assumed that I would have to do a pedo residency, but I was just curious.

There are so many things you can learn/experience/be more comfortable with after a peds residency.

Some of my GP residency learn they like peds, they like the OR cases. While they treated many patients, they still felt they needed speciality peds training.

To promote/advertise youself AS A SPECIALIST ,,,, you must do a residency,

 

[ODEP PEDO]

I have seen a few posts that claim that any dentist can perform as a specialist. Why then would dentists even bother doing a residency? To have the expanded knowledge base? Or the credentials? I want to work with children only, and had always assumed that I would have to do a pedo residency, but I was just curious.

When you restrict your practice to any specialty but as a GP (in this case Pedo) you are putting yourself at a specialty liability if anything goes wrong, they won't "cut you any slack" if a malpractice or any other issue arises. and on top of that to get a referral from another office would be more difficult, because the GP or any other specialist that is referring to you would not associate themselves with you too favorably for the first mentioned reason.

 

[Colorado2011]

Specializing to be a "specialist". I have thought about this a ton! I mean, why do they even teach endo to students when there are endodontists? Technically, you have to do a residency to officially advertise as a "Pediatric Dentist". Does this mean you can't see just kids? No. In fact, a lot of places, Just Kids, Just Braces, Happy Smiles, all those places are simply GP's working as pedodontists. The same is true of ortho. Of course there are directors trying to lead you astray, why wouldn't they? That's why most ortho prof's try and brainwash you to refer refer refer every crossbite you see. There are several programs out there to learn how to treat ortho without going through a painful residency. Progressive ortho for instance is a great CE program that is producing well trained GPs that practice full-time orthodontics without any problems. Can they tell everyone they are an "orthodontist"? Technically, no. Can they write blank blank Orthodontics on the sign outside their office? Legally, yes. Even though many orthodontists try to convince you otherwise. All the "up to a legal standard" BS is exactly that. If you don't know what you are doing, don't do it or ask. So many students get upset that they can't specialize. With the exception of oral surgery, you can do pretty much anything you want to do FULL-TIME. That's the beauty of general practice.

 

[DrReo]

Doesn't one have to state "General Dentistry Practice limited to (insert specialty)?"

 

[charlestweed]

Specializing to be a "specialist". I have thought about this a ton! I mean, why do they even teach endo to students when there are endodontists? Technically, you have to do a residency to officially advertise as a "Pediatric Dentist". Does this mean you can't see just kids? No. In fact, a lot of places, Just Kids, Just Braces, Happy Smiles, all those places are simply GP's working as pedodontists. The same is true of ortho. Of course there are directors trying to lead you astray, why wouldn't they? That's why most ortho prof's try and brainwash you to refer refer refer every crossbite you see. There are several programs out there to learn how to treat ortho without going through a painful residency. Progressive ortho for instance is a great CE program that is producing well trained GPs that practice full-time orthodontics without any problems. Can they tell everyone they are an "orthodontist"? Technically, no. Can they write blank blank Orthodontics on the sign outside their office? Legally, yes. Even though many orthodontists try to convince you otherwise. All the "up to a legal standard" BS is exactly that. If you don't know what you are doing, don't do it or ask. So many students get upset that they can't specialize. With the exception of oral surgery, you can do pretty much anything you want to do FULL-TIME. That's the beauty of general practice.

As a GP, it is hard for you to get enough ortho patients to do braces full time because other GPs in the area don't refer ortho cases to you. I've worked at my sister's GP office as an in-house orthodontist for more than 4 years. It's a fairly busy GP office. In 4 years, I still only work there 1 day/month to take care of 80 active ortho patients….my sister is the only GP who refers patients to me.

For us orthodontists (and other specialists like OS, endo, perio), we have a lot more patients because we have at least 7-8 different GP offices that refer patients to us on a regular basis. We also get new patients from insurance companies (many insurance plans require ortho certificate). As more and more people get online to search for the right orthodontist or to learn more about BRACES, more and more people are aware of the differences between the general dentists and orthodontists. We've had a lot of parents who call our offices to make sure that I am a certified orthodontist before making the 1st appointment.

 

[PickMe]

you cannot own a practice limited to children unless you are a specialist. there are general dentists working in pedo practices, like someone mentioned earlier in those company mills, but there are pediatric dentists in charge. so to answer your question, you cannot own the practice and limit it to children only being a GP.

 

[iwannabadentist]

from my understanding, as a GP u can limit ur practice to whatever you want...u just cant advertise it

 

[K Niner]

What are these OR cases that pedo does? They do oral surgery on kids or que? What training/procedures do pedo residents learn?

 

[jay47]

There are so many things you can learn/experience/be more comfortable with after a peds residency.

Some of my GP residency learn they like peds, they like the OR cases. While they treated many patients, they still felt they needed speciality peds training.

To promote/advertise youself AS A SPECIALIST ,,,, you must do a residency,

That's the key, at least by law.

 

[gryffindor]

What are these OR cases that pedo does? They do oral surgery on kids or que? What training/procedures do pedo residents learn?

Pediatric dentists take the 3 year old with bombed out teeth and caries on every single tooth to the OR for a full mouth rehab. You can't negotiate with a 3 year old to cooperate and do one quadrant at a time so they are booked for the OR and all restorative is done in one swoop.

Pedo residents do mostly operative and some interceptive ortho. The main thing pediatric dentists learn is behavior management of kids and how to do it all day long. I work down the hall from a pediatric dentist once a week and I am thankful that it's not me treating the screamers in her room.