What does a hospital dentist do?

[b-rad12]

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I will be starting dental school in a month and have seen people talking about hospital dentists and residencies in the hospital. I am curious as to what a day in the life of a hospital dentist would be and what the pros and cons are and what exactly they do.

Thanks!

 

[PsychPod]

they wake up, go to the hospital, do dentistry, eat lunch, file some paperwork, a meeting, then do more dentistry, then finish paperwork, then go home.

 

[ThetaMoen]

I shadowed GPR and OMFS residents in a major metropolitan area hospital and their day kind of went like this:

Morning: get in to work by 8, start seeing patients (depending on your patient pool you might have a cancellation or two)
Noon: eat lunch, hang in the lounge
Afternoon: exams, consults, procedures etc.
4-5pm -- go home

The residents I shadowed also had to be on call a couple times a month for emergencies, meaning that they could get called in whenever during this period to treat patients from the ER etc.

They all seemed to like working at the hospital, and it seems a lot less lonely than starting a practice solo or with a partner straight out of school. I hope this helped!

 

[sgv]

what separates them from regular dentists (AEGD or whatever else) is that they're somewhat trained to manage medically compromised patients. Patients with liver failure, end stage renal disease, cancer, patients about to go on bisphosphonates, etc.

 

[Dr. Dai Phan]

My experience as hospital dentist (Resident) and Fellow was as follows:

1. GPR (PGY1) - doing dental exams, performing all aspects of general dentistry procedures, dental consults for ER department, dental clearance for pre-transplant patients, going to OR to treat children or patients with special needs, attending dental case presentations with other residents, doing rotations in anesthesia and emergency room.

2. Fellow (PGY6) - doing dental exams and plan post surgery reconstruction for patients with missing tongue, jaw, part of the face or all of them, performing all aspects of prosthodontics and maxillofacial prosthodontics, going to the OR on weekly basis to place surgical obturator or IMF, dental clearance for head and neck radiation, chemotherapy patients, dental consult for ER department, attending grand round presentations with ENT residents, fellows.

PROS: You learn to manage medically compromised patients in an efficient manner. You will learn that medical consults you were asked to place in dental school is mostly a waste of time.

CONS: Expect a work day to be 12 hours or longer. And you will get called to the ER at the worse possible time (like 3am on weekend) when you really need to catch up on your sleep. 5:00 pm Happy Hour is an exception rather than the norm. DP

 

[Roosevelt]

2. Fellow (PGY6) - doing dental exams and plan post surgery reconstruction for patients with missing tongue, jaw, part of the face or all of them,

wow see I wouldn't mind planning it.. But reconstructing a mouth with a missing tongue and or jaw bone is scary to me. A GP wouldn't be expected to perform a procedure like that?

 

[Dr. Dai Phan]

wow see I wouldn't mind planning it.. But reconstructing a mouth with a missing tongue and or jaw bone is scary to me. A GP wouldn't be expected to perform a procedure like that?

Greetings,

For patients with missing part of the tongue, we construct a device called "palatal drop" to allow the remainder part of the tongue to make contact with the roof the mouth when speaking. This will allow better articulation and speech. With missing part of the jaw, the occlusion is quite abnormal so we have to incoporate lingual/palatal ramps onto the prostheses to allow proper occlusion. Except for rather difficult cases, most of the these procedures are within the skill of any GP who wishes to tackle something different. When I give CE classes in this field, my goal is to have the GPs perform these procedures without having to refer the patients out . DP

 

[Glimmer1991]

Noob question--how do the pay and benefits compare between a hospital and private practice job? 🙂

 

[Dr. Dai Phan]

Noob question--how do the pay and benefits compare between a hospital and private practice job? 🙂

Can't really answer this question as it depends on how much in need of a dentist the hospital wants. If they really need you, likely they will offer the typical dentist salary in the area or even higher. In private practice, your salary goes up and down based on demand while in hospital, your salary is fixed. DP

 

[ChrisM07]

^^ Wait, wait, we have to examine x-rays AND fill cavities? Wish I knew this before I applied...