why go dental?

[kimt2234]

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I am struggling with the med school and PA thing since I will be 29 when I would apply, so someone mentioned dental school as a great alternative too!

Being born with a cleft palate and lip I can tell you my dentists and orthodontists were fricken geniuses. I had teeth coming in every which way from sunday , have had 6 extracted (total of 22 as an adult), no wisdom teeth ever emerged and had my front 6 replaced with veneers (covered by insurance 🙂) not to mention starting orthodontics when I was 5 and finishing at at age 17 with braces and springs and jaws being broken and all that. I think, jesus, how have I not thought about dentistry will all the time I have spent in my dentists, espceially orthodontists office.

So, I was wondering how others here feel about pursuing dentistry and why? How did you get turned onto it? Is it silly to be engulfed in MD vs PA then decide dentistry? AM I just grabbing for straws here?

 

[Dr. Pedo]

Kimt,

My brief comment is: 29 is young and pick the career you truly want to do for 30 years!
Dentistry is a wonderful career but it is definitely not for everyone and is typically a poor alternative to medicine. I'd go PA route if medicine is more your cup-of-tea. The hand-skills you need to possess for dentistry is something most not in our field fail to realize. In medicine, only the truly specialize surg. need to have comparable hand-skills. We also perform most of our skills looking in a mirror-----tricks the mind! It is something you can develop and work-on but if teeth are not interesting, learning the skills will be difficult. It can be done but I had 2 friends leave dental for medical school after one year. Obviously they didn't go into surgery!

Shadow a dentist, gain lots of knowledge, and then make your decision. The schooling for dentistry is 4 years and specialty residencies typically 2-6 additional years. If you want to be a general dentist, typically (95%) own their own practice----which makes you have to be a business owner as well as a dentist 😱 . So do investigate before leaping.