This is the default for all the medical fields we're discussing: Derm, Family Medicine, Peds, etc. It's not the default in MD fields where you're actively saving lives every day, but that's the tradeoff. Point is MD allows you to choose which one you want. Everyone reports lower salary than they actually make.
The point in comparing salaries is that comprehensively physicians will make more money. If one doesn't want to be an entrepreneur, then 100% of the time MDs are paid more. You can't compare oral surgeon to pediatrician. If you're gonna compare oral surgery to MD then compare it to Neurosurgeon who blow them out of the water. Compare salaried family physician to the most basic salaried dentist, and the MD will make more.
Now in entrepreneurship, it all changes because the businessman makes the money, not the initials. Even so, the physician shortage will always be great than dentist shortage allowing for less competition in the field and higher rate of success in business. There's a reason you see dental practice ads all over town but how often do you see a family physician advertising themselves? They don't need to because of the HUGE PCP shortage.
Also I'm not sure what you mean by "working anything close to physician hours." The fields that compare to dentistry (Family Practice and Peds) commonly have docs that work 9-5 four days a week.
Actually OMFS ranks below most medical specialties in average salary, both surgical and non. Even considering an avg salary of 344K in OMFS, that's lower than all of ROAD. Also, Radiology and Anesthesia are not really competitive anymore and average to slightly above average students can match into them. Compared to needing to be top 3 in your class to have a chance at matching OMFS. Now of course there are OMFS that are making millions, but so are literally some people in every specialty in both fields so that doesn't matter. Just again illustrating, on average, physicians make more money no matter how you slice it.
Was being partially facetious with that comment but I agree with your sentiment that it is similar to just specializing in eyes or skin. I don't really like those pathways either. Beauty of medicine is that you can be an neurosurgeon or cardiologist and still blow everyone out of the water in terms of salary while doing amazing work. My point was that nobody likes teeth enough to warrant becoming a dentist for that reason. People generally choose it for the perceived lifestyle and because it's easier to get in than medicine.
You are in medicine in some of the fields mentioned. Again, I guess that's the difference.
Dentists are definitely respected members of our society but you're right in that it can't compare to the respect of a physician. I think the common thought when people think of dentists are smart people that just weren't good enough to be doctors. I don't think this and it's not true in all cases, but the general public thinks what they want. It is true that dentistry is less competitive than medicine and there's a reason for that.
I disagree with you in that prestige doesn't matter. Why do you care about your bank account? Why do you wanna drive a maserati instead of a camry? Why do you want a 2 mil house and not a 250K one? Because you want prestige. When we're young we think its all about the money. As we get older, we realize that WHAT WE DO matters almost as much as WHAT WE MAKE. In that case, MD will almost always win. Especially in the cases of hospital based fields saving lives - remember these guys are frequently making 1Mil+ too. For me, it's all about a balance.
Very very very wrong. ROAD is nowhere near as competitive as OMFS. Only the top 2-3 students of a dental class can get into OMFS. Any above average kid in medicine can get into Radiology or Anesthesia. Derm is probably as competitive as OMFS. But then remember there are like 10+ other fields in medicine that offer OMFS money with similar lifestyle including all the surgical branches. People think medicine for some reason is way more brutal than dentistry and it may be true in some arenas. But if you're comparing it to OMFS, then no. Surgeons in both fields work their tail off during residency (half a decade+ of 80 hour weeks), but they can both tailor their lifestyles to their choice after. I know private neurosurgeons who only do elective spine surgery about 50 hours a week and make millions.
By physician hours, I mean 45-50 hours which is considered fairly modest in medicine but undesirable to many dentists. No, 4 days a week with no call is not "the default" in multiple medical specialities.
Here's a link with the real numbers. Compare that with the 35 a typical general dentist works.
Anyways, any dentist working those 45-50 hours as an associate, unless they insist on living in one of a couple super metropolises, is certainly doing 200+ when they're up to speed, and yes, i'd seriously question your level of awareness if you wouldn't describe that as "decent money". So no, you don't need to be an entrepreneur or work crazy hours to make decent money as a GP. And obviously the potential as an owner is vastly greater.
As for the omfs comparisons, at the end of the day, oral surgeons who don't care about publishing or variety of procedures can just do private practice T&T and pull in 600k and still go to their kids' activities.
I don't even know what I'd do with that. Mid 200s is amazing for how I live.
Again, my claim is per hour, which is not what you were referencing with your numbers, and again I'm not talking about hospital/ academic guys, but private practice income optimizers. Whether they're 1 or 10 on the list doesn't really mean that much to me - I think this points to a fundamental disconnect between our respective outlooks.
So for example, you lost me with the car stuff and the million dollar house. I like Hondas and I loathe gated neighborhoods. My discretionary income goes to family outings at restaurants as well as vacations (not necessarily fancy resorts - just traveling without worrying about money). I value not missing out on my loved ones' lives before anything you describe.
You couldn't get me to care in 5 lifetimes that your car makes mine look like a turd on wheels. Similarly, you probably don't care that I bench or squat more than you do; everybody has their little points of vanity, sure, but they aren't always the same.
You describing your nice country club or your lawn care regimen to me is like trying to entice a lion with a beautiful mushroom risotto.
And you can believe yourself to be more important, too. That's fine with me. I just don't find that view to be helpful in general. Some of the greatest people I know work very common jobs which require little or no education. If I ever find myself devaluing my buddy because he works in, say, hvac, I hope someone slaps me.
But sure, if one of your patients ever returns from my office with some modest QOL improvement, whether it be a new shine on the chompers, a couple well-placed maxillary implants, or an early discovery of squamous cell carcinoma, just give me a nice pat on the head so that I can experience the approval of one of the important guys. A for effort, pal!
Anyways, a couple other points -
Yes, OMFS is a big leap, but there is absolutely a way to work the odds in your favor.
Ready for this? Get into one of the schools that boasts a perfect or near perfect record with their omfs hopefuls. The ivies, UConn, and UCLA, to name a few, achieve this regularly. My school with 45 (unranked) students per class produces 5-7 most years, and I haven't heard of anyone missing the boat.
If you go to LECOM, then yeah, you may be #1 in your class and still not match.
So bust your ass to get into a high level program, preferably unranked, and it goes from being a wild dream to a totally realistic one.
As far as not being good enough for med school, well, some dds/dmd couldn't get into md programs, sure, but of all the non-md graduate degrees, including podiatry, pharmacy, optometry, and yes even DO, dentistry has the highest matriculant GPAs/sGPAs (midway between MD and DO average), and that's with no grade replacement, AKA a free second crack at orgo/physics/whatever (which is/has been common in those other programs).
IOW, many could've done MD, and the rest could've likely succeeded in one of those non-md programs, but instead chose dentistry. And I think it comes down to the above disconnect.
Most of us worked hard and got the good grades and then made the conscious sacrifice of "cool points" (physician) for a malleable work schedule, while still being the top dog in our area (unlike, say, an NP, PA, optometrist, or debatably even podiatrist when you consider foot fellowship orthos). The public can think what they want.