I really think you need to stop saying stuff like this. Have you ever met older orthodontists? The question is rhetorical, of course, but there are many, many older orthodontists out there with hunched over back, fused discs in neck/back.. ortho is hard on the body like all other dental specialties.
There are so many misconceptions people have about ortho.. its easy for you to say "everything is great".. you came out at a different time than orthodontists now. The financial aspect alone makes this a not very good career anymore, you need to take that unto consideration. Not only that, the constant turnover of assistants at corporations, the reliance on assistants to do a lot of work (which they inevitably will do wrong), dealing with ridiculous parents and overly picky patients are many stressors orthodontists face. Most will find this job dull, boring, stressful just like general dentistry. Its not a fun hobby, and it would be way more fun being retired and sitting on a beach than dealing with all the BS an orthodontist has to deal with on a regular basis. Not to mention, if you own an orthodontic practice- the competition is absurd. Trying to stand out and grow a practice is getting so tough. Dealing with the slew of difficulties an owner does in ortho is no different than any specialty. Its very tough. Certainly very few things about i would consider "fun" or hobby-like.
Trying to piece together a full-time schedule as an orthodontist is also a frustrating endeavor which may require a lot of travel, and working at multiple offices. This is also frustrating and not ideal at all.
I often wonder why so many people have misconceptions about ortho... but if you keep telling people its all roses, when its not, that could be a reason why.
I would strongly advise the OP to NOT go into ortho, and to certainly not go to the Georgia school. In some cases it does matter where you go to school, I really doubt you will graduate from there being very competent. Its unlikely they are getting good clinical experience there. And it could easily set back one's retirement back a decade.
I really think you need to stop saying stuff like this. Have you ever met older orthodontists? The question is rhetorical, of course, but there are many, many older orthodontists out there with hunched over back, fused discs in neck/back.. ortho is hard on the body like all other dental specialties.
Yes, I have….3 of them. They sold their practices and went to work part time for the corps. I bought 4 used ortho chairs from an orthodontist, who appeared to be in his early 70s. He had back surgery but he still worked a few days a month at his main office because he enjoyed it. Neck and back pain are very common problems among old people due to sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise. Both of my parents had severe back pain when they were in their 70s and neither of them was a dentist. My father-in-law is getting steroid injection every 6 months for his back pain and he’s not a dentist either.
There are so many misconceptions people have about ortho.. its easy for you to say "everything is great".. you came out at a different time than orthodontists now. The financial aspect alone makes this a not very good career anymore, you need to take that unto consideration. Not only that, the constant turnover of assistants at corporations, the reliance on assistants to do a lot of work (which they inevitably will do wrong), dealing with ridiculous parents and overly picky patients are many stressors orthodontists face. Most will find this job dull, boring, stressful just like general dentistry. Its not a fun hobby, and it would be way more fun being retired and sitting on a beach than dealing with all the BS an orthodontist has to deal with on a regular basis. Not to mention, if you own an orthodontic practice- the competition is absurd. Trying to stand out and grow a practice is getting so tough. Dealing with the slew of difficulties an owner does in ortho is no different than any specialty. Its very tough. Certainly very few things about i would consider "fun" or hobby-like.
There are cons in every job and ortho is no exception to this. Work is not supposed to be fun. People work because there are bills to pay and family to support. When I was at your age (late 20s, mid 30s), I worked 6 days/wk…seeing 80-90 patients a day. The corp only provided 2-3 ortho chairside assistants so I had to sit down and work as an extra assistant in order to maintain smooth patient flow, to avoid complaints from patients, and to go home on time. I was too busy for a bathroom break. But I was happy because the pay was good and I was able to give myself, wife and my kids a good comfortable lifestyle. It’s way better than practicing general dentistry (I had practiced general for 1 yr before I went back to school for ortho).
The best way to achieve a good work life balance is to pay off debt as fast as you can. And in order to achieve this goal, you have to make some sacrifice at the beginning of your career…when you are still young and healthy. Time flies quickly so don’t waste it.
Once you become debt free, you get to dictate how you want run your practice, the type of patients you want to treat, the ones whom you don’t want to treat, the type of insurance you accept etc. You no longer worry about things like losing a referral dentist, an economic recession, a new ortho who opens his office right across from yours, a patient who threatens to sue you etc. Work will become less stressful (and actually enjoyable) I promise you.
Trying to piece together a full-time schedule as an orthodontist is also a frustrating endeavor which may require a lot of travel, and working at multiple offices. This is also frustrating and not ideal at all.
I actually prefer to travel to work at multiple offices for different employers than working for one employer. I can use the other jobs as leverage to negotiate for higher pay. If one place fired me (this has never happened), I would still have jobs at other places.
Working in an area (like So Cal) where there are a lot of available part time jobs at multiple locations is actually a good thing. This is one of the pros and not a con. This allows you open your own office from scratch at your desire location. You supplement your income by traveling to work at other offices. Having a positive cash flow (from the associate jobs) while building up clientele at your own office makes running a business a lot less stressful. If there were no corp jobs available in my area, I wouldn’t have been able to start my own office. It would have been impossible because my wife and I had a combine student loan debt of $450k.
I would strongly advise the OP to NOT go into ortho, and to certainly not go to the Georgia school. In some cases it does matter where you go to school, I really doubt you will graduate from there being very competent. Its unlikely they are getting good clinical experience there. And it could easily set back one's retirement back a decade.
It doesn’t matter where you earn your ortho certificate. School only teaches you basic stuff. You learn from your jobs. The more patients you treat, the more experience you will gain. A few young orthodontists in my team were let go because according to my assistants who had also worked with these orthos, they were too slow, they couldn’t tx plan, they didn’t know how to adjust the retainers (and kept sending them back to the lab), they stressed about everything, and a lot of patients complained about them. And they were from big programs like UCLA, UNC, Michigan, Harvard etc.
An ortho who travels to 5-6 different offices and sees 1000+ patients every month vs an ortho works at 1 location and only sees 100 patients a month…..who do you think has more clinical experience?
