Question about Starting Own Practice After School

[DrTacoElf]

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Ok so you finish up your 4 years of dental school, and want to eventually run your own practice. First off is a fellowship necessary to be a general dentist or can you just join up with a group/private practice right out of school.

I totally want to be private practice no doubt. Hospitals are not my cup of tea although i can tolerate them. I'm assuming that i would join up with one other dentist in his late 50's to 60's. Work with him for about 3-5 years to establish patient relationships, and then buy out his practice. By this time i would be about 33 or so. Then if i desired, i would expand to 2-3 offices total.

Also whats the best way to get "money" for this type of business stuff? Just loans?

 

[bodiddely]

Once you graduate from dental school and pass the clinical exam for the state you want to practice in, you are fully licensed and can start a practice if you wish. Most people however either do a GPR/AEGD (1-2 year residency to become more proficient at general dentistry) or become an associate at an established practice to start paying back student loans/save up to start or buy-out a practice. I believe loans are generally pretty available to start/buy a practice if you have decent credit.

 

[DrTacoElf]

Thanks for the info. Where can i find more info about the differences in GPR/AEDG.

 

[pktchris]

do a search on this forum there has been some good posts on that subject in the past

 

[kevinacko]

you may want to check out dentaltown.com to find out more about getting started with a practice. they are mostly practicing dentists over there so they may know more than we could tell you.

 

[trypmo]

This might prove to be mostly irrelevant, but I recently saw an advertisement for loans specifically for health professionals, and it said you can get a credit line up to $50k (once you're actually a dentist, of course). It was from some bank or another, so I'd think such an arrangement could be fairly common.