Ortho & pedi dentistry question?

[Crookshanks]

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Hi,
I'm a pre-med who is curious about dentistry.

My main interest is pediatrics. I'm curious about ortho and pedi dentistry, cause these would allow me to work with children/teenagers, and focus on one thing (the mouth) versus general pedi.

I'm not interested in being uber competitive, however, and it seems that that is what it takes to do a dental specialty. Any insight?

It seems as if though doing a dental speciality is insanely difficult, and yet afterwards, life is sweet. Versus general pedi is not so competitive, but is stressful like crazy because the hours are insane....so both are stressful, just more so at different points. Does this impression seem accurate? Please correct me if it doesn't.

Say I choose dentistry over medicine, but am not competitive enough to specialize...I was reading here on SDN that general dentist can focus on whichever speciality they choose to, so long as they don't claim to be specialist. Would this be a good alternative? What about in regards to pay? Does the specialist make that much more than a general dentist who only does ortho?

Thanks

 

[Biogirl361]

You should first figure out if you really like dentistry, it is a lot different than medicine and if you don't like dentistry in general you will love it even less on a wiggly screaming kid. It isn't really just medicine except "focusing on the mouth".

when you graduate from dental school you will not know nearly enough about ortho to focus on ortho in your practice. after one intro ortho class i have already decided ortho definitly deserves to be its own specialty because there is a whole different set of knowledge that you won't learn everything about in d school. it isn't just putting brackets on teeth. you can take a bunch of CE and eventually be pretty good at it, but that will take some time and in the meantime you'll have to be practicing "regular" dentistry. Same goes for pedo although maybe not so much as for ortho - i think we get a few week's rotation through pedo and a few classes about it, but i would not pretend to know everything about it and would not feel comfortable limiting my practice to it right away if that is even allowable.

I'm not sure what the ethics are about focusing on something as a general dentist - for example, you may not be allowed to turn adults away from your practice for being adults since you are not a real pediatric specialist. it would be interesting to hear some other people's comments 🙂

 

[Dr. Pedo]

Hi,
I'm a pre-med who is curious about dentistry.

My main interest is pediatrics. I'm curious about ortho and pedi dentistry, cause these would allow me to work with children/teenagers, and focus on one thing (the mouth) versus general pedi.

I'm not interested in being uber competitive, however, and it seems that that is what it takes to do a dental specialty. Any insight?

It seems as if though doing a dental speciality is insanely difficult, and yet afterwards, life is sweet. Versus general pedi is not so competitive, but is stressful like crazy because the hours are insane....so both are stressful, just more so at different points. Does this impression seem accurate? Please correct me if it doesn't.
Say I choose dentistry over medicine, but am not competitive enough to specialize...I was reading here on SDN that general dentist can focus on whichever speciality they choose to, so long as they don't claim to be specialist. Would this be a good alternative? What about in regards to pay? Does the specialist make that much more than a general dentist who only does ortho?

Thanks

Dentistry as you know is extremely different than medicine: see anal retentive. You have to enjoy a life based on millimeters, engineering, fulcrums, and occlusion. If you aren't into splitting hairs than you may be overwhelmed by the limitations in dentistry. My suggestion is to immerse yourself in both fields by shadowing. Follow around a prosthodontist 😀 for a week or a pediatric dentist.

Specializing is difficult, no doubt, but depends on the field. Dentistry only has 9 specialties. There are limited schools that offer residency (far less than medicine) for those specialties and most only accept 2-4 students a year. So competition is stiff as you mentioned for Ortho and Pedo (as well as many others: OS, Endo). But the rewards are incredible. Lifestyle, income, hours, no insurance headaches (or much less), and being a business owner, etc...

No matter the path you choose (med or dental specialty) it is a long race---a minimum of 6 years after college. The object is not to sprint and get burned-out early. Pace yourself, enjoy the experience, find what you want to do, and hit the books. Med and Dent are competitive. Dent is nearing the ridiculous mainly because word is out on lifestyle, income, insurance, etc... Good luck in your decision----you're wise to investigate what you want to do for the rest of your life.

 

[aphistis]

Hi,
I'm a pre-med who is curious about dentistry.

My main interest is pediatrics. I'm curious about ortho and pedi dentistry, cause these would allow me to work with children/teenagers, and focus on one thing (the mouth) versus general pedi.

I'm not interested in being uber competitive, however, and it seems that that is what it takes to do a dental specialty. Any insight?

It seems as if though doing a dental speciality is insanely difficult, and yet afterwards, life is sweet. Versus general pedi is not so competitive, but is stressful like crazy because the hours are insane....so both are stressful, just more so at different points. Does this impression seem accurate? Please correct me if it doesn't.

Say I choose dentistry over medicine, but am not competitive enough to specialize...I was reading here on SDN that general dentist can focus on whichever speciality they choose to, so long as they don't claim to be specialist. Would this be a good alternative? What about in regards to pay? Does the specialist make that much more than a general dentist who only does ortho?

Thanks

First off, welcome to the dark side. 😉

Orthodontics residencies are exceptionally competitive. Pedo isn't as tough by comparison, but you're right when you mentioned that most dental specialties are fairly competitive.

One of the perks of general dentistry is being able to tailor your practice to as broad or narrow a focus as you want. If you want to limit your practice to orthodontics, then you're perfectly able to do that. As a caveat, however, you're still held to the specialist standard of care if something goes wrong and a patient litigates.

On a per-hours-worked basis, any dentist's income will match up very competitively with a similarly specialized physician's (i.e. primary care versus specialty).

Bottom line, there's plenty of room in the profession if you want to spend your time working with kids--but don't take the plunge until you've spent the time & energy to find out if this is the profession for you. Best of luck to you!

 

[Crookshanks]

Thank you all for responding. I'm not exactly inlove with dentistry, I don't know enough about it to be inlove with it just yet, but it does seem very interesting. I like the idea of knowing a lot about a little...it's so ME. I think I will try to shadow a dentist sometime this year if I can find one who'll let me. Thank you guys again for your insight.

 

[WildcatDMD]

Thank you all for responding. I'm not exactly inlove with dentistry, I don't know enough about it to be inlove with it just yet, but it does seem very interesting. I like the idea of knowing a lot about a little...it's so ME. I think I will try to shadow a dentist sometime this year if I can find one who'll let me. Thank you guys again for your insight.

From the outside, this seems like the case, after all it's just the teeth and mouth, right? Unfortunately, when you graduate dental school, just like medical school, you will know a little about a lot. It will take the rest of your life to almost fully understand dentistry.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Ortho is very competitive, but pedo isn't competitive at all. Apply away!

(Your idea of shadowing a dentist for a while is an excellent one, and certainly a first step that you must take in order to do the process of choosing between medicine and dentistry some justice).

 

[Crookshanks]

Ortho is very competitive, but pedo isn't competitive at all. Apply away!

(Your idea of shadowing a dentist for a while is an excellent one, and certainly a first step that you must take in order to do the process of choosing between medicine and dentistry some justice).

Really? Pediatric dentistry isn't that competitive??? Fill me in....