USPHS/dental career option

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1913doc

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I am a dentist in the United States Public Health Service. After serving as a dental officer in the Air Force for several years, I decided to transition into PHS to help underserved populations. Currently, I am a Chief Dental Officer working with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at one of the busiest federal prisons in the agency. I work in a very unique environment and have found the experience to be very rewarding. If you are interested in becoming a dental Commissioned Corp officer and would like to know about the benefits that PHS can offer, please submit your questions below.

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I'm currently considering job options. I'm in my last few months of dental school. I've looked into the PHS a lot, and I guess my main concern would be the lack of variety of dentistry that is being performed. Does this ever bother you? Also, do you feel like it is financially comparable to private practice given all of the benefits? Any information would be great. Thanks!
 
There are some positions where there is a great variety of dentistry being performed and some where there isn't. For instance, IHS dentists see patients of all ages, so they do the full range of dental treatment (pedo, dentures, operative, extractions, endo, etc). And then there are admin jobs where you do just enough dentistry to keep your license active (just like in the DoD). In my job with the USCG I do mostly exams, operative, and some fixed prosth. My clinic has too many patients for me to do everything; I would be booked out too far if I tried. So I pick and choose the cases I want to do and refer the rest to keep my appointment schedule full out to about 3-4 weeks. I could do perio surgeries or endo and refer out operative if I wanted to, but I think my patients would be better served in those cases by seeing a specialist.
 
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