Surplus dentist if things quiet down?

[blankguy]

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What is the possibility that conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan quiet down within the next few years? If this does happen do you think that retention rates in the military will improve and end up with surplus dentists? Anybody heard of a situation in which a dentist ended up doing something else because of such a situation?😕

 

[BQuad]

The Dental Corps has been understaffed for over a decade, there probably never will be a surplus of dentists in the Army.

 

[blankguy]

My recruiter did mention that there are 900 dentists in the army dental corp but they want 1200 dentists. They are short 300 dentists.

 

[dheav005]

same sort of thing holds true for the Navy. we have more than a few contractor dentists at our clinic because there are so few LTs and LCDRs to do the average drill and fill sort of work that is the greatest patient need. from the messages coming from the recruiter, it is all he can do to find enough people to fill the billets for ships and the Marines, not to mention Gitmo, the SeaBees, Guam, etc.

 

[Tooth]

I doubt things will be calming down in the next few years. I suspect well be in Iran before long.

 

[Deep Impact]

As long as the war and "platinum age" of dentistry continues, I'm sure the shortage won't go away quickly.

 

[shamrock2006]

As long as the war and "platinum age" of dentistry continues, I'm sure the shortage won't go away quickly.

what is this platinum age you speak of?

 

[blankguy]

Do you think people like McCain will stretch the military even more since he is talking tough about terrorists?

Platinum age refers to now since dentistry is so lucrative.

 

[blankguy]

Okay so it is just political banter.

 

[Tooth]

In the last week, 5 deep sea internet cables were cut effectively cutting off the internet to Iran and surrounding countries.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Display...ebruary/theuae_February155.xml&section=theuae

 

[blankguy]

I doubt that this was intentionally.

 

[Tooth]

I doubt that this was intentionally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCBJm1X48XQ

This video is a little choppy though. I wish I could have seen it in its entirety.

 

[blankguy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCBJm1X48XQ

This video is a little choppy though. I wish I could have seen it in its entirety.

Planning and carrying out are two different things. I seriously doubt they would do that now.

 

[bass for less]

I agree. The two ways that military gets dentist to satisfy the annual dentist billets are through either the scholarship channel, or direct recruitment of licensed dentists. The scholarships provide military with future lifeblood because of the time it takes to develop us. If there is ever a surplus, they always have the option to reduce the direct hiring effort and the result will be immediate. From what I read navy and army have not been able to reach hpsp target for a few years. Obama and McCain both propose to increase the military force size (not sure about Clinton). I think the need for dentist will continue for a good while.

One would like to think that there is possibility that the conflicts will quiet down over the next few years, but it is impossible to predict no matter who becomes our president. Don't turn this comment into a republican or democrat will be better thread. No one can predict what will happen.

That said, would there become a surplus of dentist? No. The only way we could get a surplus is after the conflict are over the military fills all the open dentist billets. Then, there military would have to suddenly reduce its overall numbers without reducing the number of dentists. But this is unlikley to occur. Plus, it is a continual process that dentist join and dentist leave the military. There are only so many billets available for dentists. If none are available, they are not going to bring dentists in at the time.

 

[Midoc]

The Dental Corps has been understaffed for over a decade, there probably never will be a surplus of dentists in the Army.

I wouldn't say never. Just look back to the golden 80's (early 80's at least) of the dental corp. National recession with little or no deployments anywhere and the compensation for dentists in the military was as good as or better than civilians with the chance to be posted in nice places around the world (Europe, Japan). I'm not saying its likely, but its possible.

 

[baddog]

Yep--I was an AF dentist in the 80's who got out then decided to come back in. You had to be in the top 10% of your class JUST TO GET IN to the AF at that time! Also, the accession rate was less than 100 dentists that year at a time when we had 1500 dentists on board. However, it is likely that the military services will expand as they are too small as the recent conflicts have demonstrated. In order to reduce the Dental Corp size in the 90's they offered a buy out and early retirement at 17 years.

 

[Midoc]

Yep--I was an AF dentist in the 80's who got out then decided to come back in. You had to be in the top 10% of your class JUST TO GET IN to the AF at that time! Also, the accession rate was less than 100 dentists that year at a time when we had 1500 dentists on board. However, it is likely that the military services will expand as they are too small as the recent conflicts have demonstrated. In order to reduce the Dental Corp size in the 90's they offered a buy out and early retirement at 17 years.

baddog, you're so right. That is exactly the reason that I spend 95% of my time doing exams and class 3 operative.