Physician assistant vs dentist

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Spooky stuff. Almost considered being a PA when I was a freshman. Glad I chose to pursue OMFS instead.

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Spooky stuff. Almost considered being a PA when I was a freshman. Glad I chose to pursue OMFS instead.
But when someone asks you gotta say "I'm more interested in general but will keep my options open" or else you will be on a hit list in dental school.
 
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Pods take the exact same classes as MD/DO students in most schools. In three of the nine pod schools, the students literally take classes with the DO students. Same tests, power points, everything. I can literally poke a DO student next to me when I'm in class. The only class we do not take with them is OMM.

Where pod breaks off is during 3rd year. We do the same rotations but do much more surgery than our DO counterparts

So, the question then becomes, do you view DOs as physicians? If so, then you would view podiatrists, at least from AZPOD and DMU and Western, as physicians.

The last time I checked, Nurses don't take classes with the DO students.

I guess by your ingenious logic, nurses are considered doctors too.
 
But when someone asks you gotta say "I'm more interested in general but will keep my options open" or else you will be on a hit list in dental school. What an omfs and ortho from the ds I'm attending told me anyway haha.
Yep, absolutely! I'm keeping my interests on the down low, especially during interviews.
 
Yep, absolutely! I'm keeping my interests on the down low, especially during interviews.
Never came up for me but almost every interview had a "where do you see yourself in 5 years" among the ones I had.
 
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YES! I agree with you completely my worry is though that I'll be forever working as an associate because i can't take out a loan for a practice given that my loan is gonna be so high!
Who told you you cannot take out a practice loan while paying off your student loan? You just have to work at least an year or two to prove that you can service the loans. Do some research. There is plenty of information on this topic.
 
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Hey guys so I got into dental school!!!!exciting right?! Well that 450k price tag has me questioning everything. I recently came across physician assistant? Can someone shine some light on what they think and if it's a better alternative?!?? Sinercerly lost and confused
Not to be rude but if you are questioning Dentistry because of finances I think you should just go to PA school and save a spot for someone that is passionate enough about the profession to study Dentistry regardless of the cost.
 
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Not to be rude but if you are questioning Dentistry because of finances I think you should just go to PA school and save a spot for someone that is passionate enough about the profession to study Dentistry regardless of the cost.
Anyone that pursues dentistry for 450k and doesnt pause to make sure thats the right decision has something wrong with them.
 
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Anyone that pursues dentistry for 450k and doesnt pause to make sure thats the right decision has something wrong with them.

According to you!
 
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Anyone that pursues dentistry for 450k and doesnt pause to make sure thats the right decision has something wrong with them.
Anyone that doesn't do it before DAT and applying has something wrong with them. It is absolutely necessary to consider all the pros and cons, but it must be done prior to spending the money and time on the application process. All I was trying to say is if you truly love the profession the cost will not be the icebreaker.
 
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Anyone that doesn't do it before DAT and applying has something wrong with them. It is absolutely necessary to consider all the pros and cons, but it must be done prior to spending the money and time on the application process. All I was trying to say is if you truly love the profession the cost will not be the icebreaker.
That makes no sense when the DAT score can add or subtract 100-200k... if I get a 19 compared to a 24, you can bet that those 5 points might have just saved me 200k. I agree it should be done before applying, but it doesnt have to be done before the DAT.

And maybe youre right that if you TRULY love the profession, cost wont be the icebreaker, but people shouldnt pursue another profession simply because they dont have enough passion for dentistry that would trump half a million dollars of debt for it. Thats emotionally thinking and choosing a career cant just be an emotional choice.
 
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Not to be rude but if you are questioning Dentistry because of finances I think you should just go to PA school and save a spot for someone that is passionate enough about the profession to study Dentistry regardless of the cost.
What horrible advice.

"BRO IF YOU REALLY CARED ABOUT DENTISTRY YOU'D GO A MILLION DOLLARS INTO DEBT FOR IT. I GUESS YOU'RE JUST NOT THAT SERIOUS ABOUT IT."

Please...spare me. There's an opportunity cost with everything, and at a certain point dental school isn't worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars you'll be out for it (NYU, USC, South Carolina, MWU, etc).
 
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It's all about the ROI. You're investing $450,000 at ~6% APR to get a degree that will allow you to make ~$160,000 (roughly the national average). If you choose to pay them off in 25 years your monthly payments will be like ~$2,000. You'll still have arouND $10,000 per mouth for taxes, bills, etc. You won't be buying that new BMW every year, but I doubt you'll starve.
 
What horrible advice.

"BRO IF YOU REALLY CARED ABOUT DENTISTRY YOU'D GO A MILLION DOLLARS INTO DEBT FOR IT. I GUESS YOU'RE JUST NOT THAT SERIOUS ABOUT IT."

Please...spare me. There's an opportunity cost with everything, and at a certain point dental school isn't worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars you'll be out for it (NYU, USC, South Carolina, MWU, etc).
The cost is high, no doubt about that, But, it is managable. The cost does not make DS not worth it, at least at this point. There are plenty of options for loan repayment. There is no right or wrong here. "Expensive" is different for everyone.
 
Ow imagine if that same person lived off of 2k/month and paid the rest to debt. He would be out by six years.

It's all about the ROI. You're investing $450,000 at ~6% APR to get a degree that will allow you to make ~$160,000 (roughly the national average). If you choose to pay them off in 25 years your monthly payments will be like ~$2,000. You'll still have arouND $10,000 per mouth for taxes, bills, etc. You won't be buying that new BMW every year, but I doubt you'll starve.
 
PA is probably the best school/salary combo going right now. Three years of schooling and you're making six figures with good flexibility of being able to choose where you want to work/relocate easily. However, you will never be your own boss and will always have someone to answer to. Personally, I want to own a practice, build a business, and curtail it to my preferences. I wouldn't be happier later in life knowing the ceiling of my career would be someone's assistant, but again that's just a personal preference.

What this guy said.

You should look more into PA school. $450k is way too much to pay for dental school when you realize that the amount is going to accrue interest, and a LOT of it. Medicine has a better ROI than dentistry does.


I took the DAT a year ago after what I thought was lots of shadowing, but now that I have a few hundred hours shadowing many general dentists in different areas, plus I have had a year to think about it before I apply, I know I want to go into dentistry. But it definitely has its problems.

And I can assure you this. If dentistry goes the way pharmacy has, with $300k of debt over my head, if I can't see myself making AT LEAST 8000 per month coming out of dental school, there is no way it makes financial sense.

I hope and pray it doesn't go the way pharmacy has. Change is inevitable, but I hope for the best.
 
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I take great pride knowing that although thousands of dentists graduate per year, there is an insane bottleneck from wanting to be a dentist versus actually getting into dental school. We will never truly experience saturation as bad as other fields no matter what anyone says. If you don't believe me, try getting a job with your biology degree, or a job paying over 70k right out of college with a business degree.

Do you think that Dental schools could mess that up? I am sure they take precaution to make sure they don't flood the state with too many dentists. I know there was some sort of big scare in the 1970s/1980s where there were going to be too many dentists, so the schools had to cut back in student size?

Also, do you think dentists(and possibly all doctors) should be payed for their academic efforts and for going to school for much longer than most people? I definitely do.
 
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The cost is high, no doubt about that, But, it is managable. The cost does not make DS not worth it, at least at this point. There are plenty of options for loan repayment. There is no right or wrong here. "Expensive" is different for everyone.
I will agree with you on the two points you made. One is that everyone's situation is different. Some people have parents helping them out, some people may be fortunate enough to be accepted by in-state schools, some may have the military paying for it, etc. Secondly, you're right that there is no right or wrong here. If one chooses to take on a hefty debt burden, they may not mind paying it off for X amount of time. Although I for one would not like paying off half a million dollars over the next decade plus while living like a college student during that time period. Most people that take on that level of debt will be in that situation though, and it's just going to get worse as tuition prices drastically rise each passing cycle. People really need to start reassessing their situations after they have a DAT score in hand.

Also I'm not advising against dentistry by any means whatsoever. If you're able to keep your debt under 300K-ish I think it can pay off enormously.
 
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Do you think that Dental schools could mess that up? I am sure they take precaution to make sure they don't flood the state with too many dentists. I know there was some sort of big scare in the 1970s/1980s where there were going to be too many dentists, so the schools had to cut back in student size?

Also, do you think dentists(and possibly all doctors) should be payed for their academic efforts and for going to school for much longer than most people? I definitely do.

I don't think we can make this argument to be honest. Length of training doesn't necessarily correlate to higher salary. If that was the case, PhD would've been a more popular career choice among pre-meds.
 
I don't think we can make this argument to be honest. Length of training doesn't necessarily correlate to higher salary. If that was the case, PhD would've been a more popular career choice among pre-meds.
Ah, I see. Most PhDs get paid to go to school as well. They don't have to incur half a million dollars of debt, so there is no real need to have a six figure starting salary.
 
I know there was some sort of big scare in the 1970s/1980s where there were going to be too many dentists, so the schools had to cut back in student size?

For schools with sky high tuition rates that will soon (or already are) less competitive, do you think these schools will choose to accept less students or just accept "lower quality" students? I can't see how a school would be willing to go without a couple million dollars in tuition for the sake of the profession. Honestly they probably don't care enough and even a "lower quality" dental student is probably "good enough". I wonder how bad it'll have to get before schools start decreasing their class sizes.
 
For schools with sky high tuition rates that will soon (or already are) less competitive, do you think these schools will choose to accept less students or just accept "lower quality" students? I can't see how a school would be willing to go without a couple million dollars in tuition for the sake of the profession. Honestly they probably don't care enough and even a "lower quality" dental student is probably "good enough". I wonder how bad it'll have to get before schools start decreasing their class sizes.
There is a school close to me. I will not name it, but it has a very poor pass rate on NBDEs and it has VERY low requirements. You could probably guess it, but I won't entertain those guesses. No need to bad mouth any school, even if its true. Guess what.. They have very low entry requirements, but they have very high tuition. And what is sad is that most of the grads that come out of there work EXTREMELY slow. I can speak from personal experience.

So to answer your question, yes, I would be really worried about schools getting greedy and continuing to charge lots of money for students who wanted to be dentists but didn't make as good of a DAT/GPA.

But I am also a pre-dent who hasn't been accepted. So I'm gonna remember my place and ask Alpha Centauri to answer my questions too, since he's gonna be a dentist much sooner.

Anyway, with what you said, I am pretty sure that is what happened to Pharmacy. They have extremely low requirements for a lot of schools and I personally know people going after only 2 years of undergrad. They get a C in Organic their last semester with a 3.3 GPA and get in to multiple schools. Like what the heck?!
 
Ah, I see. Most PhDs get paid to go to school as well. They don't have to incur half a million dollars of debt, so there is no real need to have a six figure starting salary.

Sure that's a good point. But even considering the tuition stipend they get, biology post-doc salaries are absurd (~30-40k) compared to the years they put in.
I don't know what to tell you about the half a million dollar debt thing. It blows my mind that pre-dents actually try to justify this. I personally think MD/DO has better ROI than private dental schools.
 
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There is a school close to me. I will not name it, but it has a very poor pass rate on NBDEs and it has VERY low requirements. You could probably guess it, but I won't entertain those guesses. No need to bad mouth any school, even if its true. Guess what.. They have very low entry requirements, but they have very high tuition. And what is sad is that most of the grads that come out of there work EXTREMELY slow. I can speak from personal experience.

Anyway, with what you said, I am pretty sure that is what happened to Pharmacy. They have extremely low requirements for a lot of schools and I personally know people going after only 2 years of undergrad. They get a C in Organic their last semester with a 3.3 GPA and get in to multiple schools. Like what the heck?!

I don't think the admission standards will go down to that level. Pharmacy schools are also ridiculously easy to open. There are even couple of online Pharmacy schools.
I'm just curious to see what will be deemed "okay" for dental school tuition in 2020.
 
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OP,

Be careful that you're not falling into "grass is greener" syndrome - PA is also running into trouble - Take a look at the trends in the PA field. 80+ new programs opening, saturation increasing as everyone chases it, etc.

Here's some research by our very own @Cello
Even if the PA market gets saturated it will not bad like Dentistry or Pharmacy. The nightmare of doctors shortage has been around since 1970 but nothing happened why? NP's and PA's are covering the missing spots. There is still shortage of PA's and Np's and I don't think it's the same case with dentistry. The last time I asked my dentist about this issue he said " there are far too many dentists"
 
Even if the PA market gets saturated it will not bad like Dentistry or Pharmacy. The nightmare of doctors shortage has been around since 1970 but nothing happened why? NP's and PA's are covering the missing spots. There is still shortage of PA's and Np's and I don't think it's the same case with dentistry. The last time I asked my dentist about this issue he said " there are far too many dentists"
That's what every professional says about their field if it isn't vastly undersaturated.
 
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That's what every professional says about their field if it isn't vastly undersaturated.
I agree with you but pharmacy is crazy saturated and dentistry is already saturated at least in my location (Cleveland, Ohio). There are more dentists than gas stations at the street where I live at ( 3 GPs, 3 chains, and 2 specialists)
 
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I agree with you but pharmacy is crazy saturated and dentistry is already saturated at least in my location (Cleveland, Ohio). There are more dentists than gas stations at the street where I live at ( 3 GPs, 3 chains, and 2 specialists)

That's terrifying considering the debt Dental students carry. I think saturation is a bigger issue for professions focusing on elective care.
 
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Saturation only occurs because no one wants to take the risk of moving away from major cities and building a practice in a town with a lower population


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Saturation only occurs because no one wants to take the risk of moving away from major cities and building a practice in a town with a lower population


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Not really. A lot of these towns with lower populations are starting to get saturated. Also, going to a town with a lower pop brings other challenges: finding qualified staff, finding patients who have the money to pay for treatment, etc.

"Going rural" isnt the cure-all that it is sometimes wrongly painted as
 
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