I think you should right about the floor of ortho income being the same as gp income. Logic says if orthos started making the same as GPs they would just work in GP offices doing a mix of GP and ortho. Theoretically this is the same for every specialty.
Orthodontics may be a great gig for you since tuition back in your day was worth $100 and a few guitar lessons in trade. Ortho now costs an insane amount of money and the market will be flooded in the next decade. I’m not an economist but it just doesn’t look good when a program is pumping out 45 residents a year.
Agreed.
What if that great salary doesn't persist with all these grads being pumped out? Also, 500k sounds like a great salary. When you're staring down 400k+ of dental school loans with 300-400k from ortho and accruing interest, that doesn't look that great. Maybe if you someone was able to live in their car for a few years in their late 20s early 30s out of residency.
If I’m not mistaken you want to become an omfs.
This thread is made with genuine concern for the field of orthodontics. Orthodontics was my first love for dentistry and I still wouldn’t count it completely out of my future. I want to know if orthodontics is still going to be a decent field to pursue especially after some of the things I’ve heard real orthodontists say. I know I take after my mentor @bigtimehoosier a bit but I’m not trolling with this thread.
Lol hey there’s no denying that. Perhaps there should be a further push for ergonomics in oral surgery
It’s true that tuition was much less 20-25 years ago. I believe 2THMVR went to a program that paid him. I went to a public ortho program that only charged me $13k/year (only $5k for in-state residents). That’s why we, older orthodontists, were able to afford to have a lot of nice things….a big house in an upscale neighborhood, new expensive cars every 2-3 years, expensive vacation trips (and paid the staff to travel to attend the AAO convention with them), and having multiple investment properties etc.
A person with a $500k/year income shouldn’t have any problem paying back a $1+million debt. He should be in much better financial shape than someone who only makes $200k/year and has zero debt. And the assistants do most of the hard work for him.
You speak from a lot of experience. You are an asset to students on these forums. 1 million in debt with interest makes someone like me queasy thinking about it. Your perspective makes it seem like it really isn’t that bad. I’ve heard that same line about people quitting to go back to ortho. In reality, how many people are actually doing that?
Yeah, $1 million in debt is a lot and you should be worried. I was too when I knew that if I included my fiance’s debt (she went to USC…4 years DDS + 3 years perio), our total student loan debt would be $450k. I was still in school and I didn’t know if both of us could make enough to pay back the loans after graduation. Even back then, I was told that perio was a dying specialty. I took a chance and married her any way. Thanks God, my wife is also a very hard worker. We both worked 6 days/wk. That’s why we could afford to buy a house and then an existing perio practice for my wife in less than 6 months after graduation. And our total debt amount went up to $1+ million ($450k student loans, $380k home loan, $120k practice loan, and 2 leased car). With our good income, we didn’t have any problem paying back the loans.
Not very many do for a lot of reasons:
Davey Ramsey’s youtube channel has it
The new ortho hire you mention will be the unfortunate reality for many students. It makes this neat profession seem out of reach.
I heard both orthos’ (Meru’s and another guy’s) stories on Dave Ramsey’s show. The reason they were in financial trouble was neither of them made over $250k/year….and neither of their wives worked. It seemed like neither of them was in a panic mode because if they were they could have worked more days to increase their incomes. Dr. Meru could have sold his house to pay down the student loan debt but he didn’t. On one of his home made videos, he showed a helicopter ride that he rented for his kid’s birthday. He drove a Tesla. He took vacations regularly. You are not supposed to take vacation when you’re broke.
Home loans and student loans are different…one can be discharged in bankruptcy and the other one can’t be. But to me, they are the same because the required monthly repayment amounts for all debts are the same. Because of these debt repayments, I couldn’t spend my hard earned money on things that I like to spend on....had to make sacrifices. These debts still forced my wife and me to work 6 days/wk. I was still under the same financial stress and the only way to eliminate this stress is to work hard and become debt free ASAP. That's the Asian mentality. We, Asians, are very afraid of debt. You don't see a lot of foreclosure in communities that have a lot of Asian homeowners.
If this ortho is in his early 30s and makes over $300k/year, he should be fine because he has plenty of time to work to save for his retirement. I owed more than $1million when I was in my early 30s…..and and over $2 million in total debt when I was in my mid 30s. I didn’t start setting up a 401k account until I was 33-34yo. I am about to turn 51 and was debt free 2 years ago.
No, not at all costs, especially if you are picky about the job offers (don't want to work on the weekends, don't want to travel to multiple ofices, don't want to work for a GP etc) and are not willing to work 5 or more days/wk.
The Asian mentality huh. It appears the Caucasian mentality trumps it from what I see on the internet. The Caucasian mentality paved the way for van life. The ultimate frugal lifestyle.
It still costs a lot for such van lifestyle. Solar panels and battery powered generator are not cheap to set up. And you still have to worry about power outage when there is no sun during the cold winter months. You have to pay for repairs and maintenances. You have to worry about where to safely and legally park your van at night. People still consider you “homeless.”
That story commands respect
How’s your back?
I'd be curious to know @charlestweed's actual political affiliations (if he has any)
I am a Reagan conservative…..less government, lower taxes, strong military etc. I came to the US in 1986, when President Reagan was in his last 2 years of his second term.
Don’t forget about the second amendment.
That’s the one
Maybe don't drown yourself in 400k+ debt to see a handful of patients a week in an overcrowded and controversial residency program like GSO if you think the field is going to go the way of pharmacy in the next decade?
I think dentistry is more comparable to the medical market than pharmacy. We don’t sell manufactured goods like pharmacy; we sell services.
