What Dentists Make...

[aphistis]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

It happens in dentistry too. Back a few decades ago, the government introduced capitation plans for education, requiring that dental schools churn out x number of graduates per year. What started out as a shortage ended up producing an oversupply of dentists in the 70's and 80's, and salaries dropped accordingly. I'm not too clear on the details of how the problem took root, but as recently as a decade ago, dentist salaries were dramatically lower than they are right now. We're definitely not immune from market cycles (and government meddling).

 

[sxr71]

^^^ I don't think we're immune from those sorts of things at all, but I think our exposure to those kinds of risks are lower. I really do think that the situation you discussed was a one time meddling by the government that happened decades ago. In contrast some of these medical fields have swung up and down and back up again in the space of 15 years (and we're talking about pretty huge swings).

I do agree that if the government can cause us some pretty serious problems to any profession. However, I do think that over the period of 20-30 years even the government has made quite a bit of progress in allowing the market to solve its own problems. In those years we have seen deregulation of many industries like Airlines, Telecommunications, and most recently, Electricity. I may be wrong, but modern government seems a lot less likely to get involved even in the area of healthcare (although I have no problem admitting that healthcare is the most likely candidate for direct government intervention excluding those industries with military significance).

In any case you bring up a significant risk that I hadn't thought of before. With the statistics showing that around 30% of current dentists are within 10 years of retirement age, the government may feel a need to get involved. However, I hope that our modern government leaves it up to the ADA to decide how to deal with a potential shortage problem.