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I've never quite understood this... can anyone explain why dentists have to pay to do residencies and physicians get paid? seems like a very big divide here...
Why do DMD/DDS's PAY to do residencies and MD/DO's GET PAID??
- Thread starter yorkiepoo
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Thats not true. Not all residencies for dentists are tuition based. Usually only school-based programs are. For the most part, all hospital based residency programs, whether its a GPR, Pedo,Ortho,OMFS etc, pay YOU a stipend. Its usually not a huge sum of money, but it's enough to live on
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There is no explanation, because dentists do get paid during residency. Average is $45,000. Not a lot, but it's something.
-Hup!
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Residencies that are seen ass valuable to the populace or the educational institution recieve funding to pay their residents a stipend. All OMFS residencies, GPR/AEGD residencies, most pedo and some prosth/perio/ortho residencies (mostly hospital based) receive stipends.
Programs don't pay stipends because it's probably a little hard to convince ACGME that paying an orthodontist to train at your program is more important than paying a general surgeon or pulmonology fellow.
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If you want to be an orthodontist, you're damn sure going to do it, whether you get paid or not. You're damn right that paid residencies get a hell of a lot more attention though.
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There was a blip in the not too distant past where ALL dental residents, hospital and school based programs, were paid for about 2 years (2002 - 2004) with GME funds just like medical residents get paid. GME pulled the funds for the school based programs in 2003 and have not reinstated them. Ortho/Perio/Prostho/Endo residents at places like NYU and USC with outrageous tuitions really hit the jackpot those years. Everyone in prior and subsequent years has had to pay sticker price.
Instead of shutting down, some of these programs (especially ortho and endo)have a long line of people clamoring to get in. I am only most familiar with ortho residencies, and there are like 60ish programs out there. Only 8 are associated with hospitals, and of those only 5 actually pay their residents the full PGY salary that the medical residents get. The other 3 have various excuses ("tuition" or "you only work 60% as hard as a medical resident") they use to withold upto half of the salary. They are able to pull this kind of stuff because although the money comes from GME, dental residencies are technically not under ACGME guidelines. Besides these 8 hospital programs, the rest of the programs out there are mostly associated with dental schools and are free to charge whatever they want. The residents in those programs are classified as graduate students, so federal loan money (if you haven't exceeded the cap from undergrad + dental school) is available for these residents to borrow for tuition and living expenses. Some of the state school programs are still cheap with tuition nearing zero so only have to borrow for living. But even the most expensive programs like USC (70K tuition a year for 3 years) still fill all of their slots in the match. Actually, come match day, all spots fill with maybe only 2 or 3 open spots. The open spots are mostly due to programs not ranking enough candidates, not lack of desirability. Even the programs that don't participate in the match with huge tuitions (Denver, Jacksonville, BU) easily fill their spots too.
It's funny though, the paid programs aren't necessarily more popular than the unpaid programs. I've met candidates who turn their nose up at having to live in the Bronx to attend a paid program and would rather pay tuition to not have to leave California. This past match cycle was the first time our program offered a salary to all the applicants, yet were still enough negatives about our program where candidates very likely chose a more established unpaid program over ours even with a salary offer.
Can you think of a med student who would pay for a chance to attend a derm residency because he/she can't match into a paid position due to competition? I bet you can. Unfortunately, it's sort of the same scenario over here.
Instead of shutting down, some of these programs (especially ortho and endo)have a long line of people clamoring to get in. I am only most familiar with ortho residencies, and there are like 60ish programs out there. Only 8 are associated with hospitals, and of those only 5 actually pay their residents the full PGY salary that the medical residents get. The other 3 have various excuses ("tuition" or "you only work 60% as hard as a medical resident") they use to withold upto half of the salary. They are able to pull this kind of stuff because although the money comes from GME, dental residencies are technically not under ACGME guidelines. Besides these 8 hospital programs, the rest of the programs out there are mostly associated with dental schools and are free to charge whatever they want. The residents in those programs are classified as graduate students, so federal loan money (if you haven't exceeded the cap from undergrad + dental school) is available for these residents to borrow for tuition and living expenses. Some of the state school programs are still cheap with tuition nearing zero so only have to borrow for living. But even the most expensive programs like USC (70K tuition a year for 3 years) still fill all of their slots in the match. Actually, come match day, all spots fill with maybe only 2 or 3 open spots. The open spots are mostly due to programs not ranking enough candidates, not lack of desirability. Even the programs that don't participate in the match with huge tuitions (Denver, Jacksonville, BU) easily fill their spots too.
It's funny though, the paid programs aren't necessarily more popular than the unpaid programs. I've met candidates who turn their nose up at having to live in the Bronx to attend a paid program and would rather pay tuition to not have to leave California. This past match cycle was the first time our program offered a salary to all the applicants, yet were still enough negatives about our program where candidates very likely chose a more established unpaid program over ours even with a salary offer.
Can you think of a med student who would pay for a chance to attend a derm residency because he/she can't match into a paid position due to competition? I bet you can. Unfortunately, it's sort of the same scenario over here.
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Good topic, but I wouldn't care if I had to pay entirely for a residency.
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