Women in dentistry

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gentexan

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So I've been told that women only practice on an average of 8 years and then quit practicing dentistry to have kids and be with their families. Does anyone know of where I can find this study? I don't think gender should matter, but if this is the truth and their is a dental shortage, then more chairs should be available in dental schools!

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So I've been told that women only practice on an average of 8 years and then quit practicing dentistry to have kids and be with their families. Does anyone know of where I can find this study? I don't think gender should matter, but if this is the truth and their is a dental shortage, then more chairs should be available in dental schools!

Why you trying to stir up trouble. First your "what's the deal with gay dentists comment" now your more subtle "what's the deal with women dentists." You are quite the trouble maker.
 
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I will have to agree with Snahster... Are you trying to be a troll? I find it completely ridiculous for you to get on here and start posting such socially biased questions that you deliberately try to get a rise outta people with.
 

Speaking purely economically (and not thinking of the negative public health implications) this is good for you and other predents. Supply and Demand. Since Dentists are going to continue to be in short supply there will always be great demand and therefore you will be able to find patients when you are a dentist and you can make a living. Do you really want too many dentists around? You'd go broke.
 
Did you even read the article?

Apparently none of you want to help the millions of people who are without access to dental care. You'd rather the dental schools remain small and accept applicants who will most likely work part time, just so that you can have a larger demand for you business and more money? That's what I'm hearing.

Yes, I am trying to promote healthy discussion.
 
So I've been told that women only practice on an average of 8 years and then quit practicing dentistry to have kids and be with their families. Does anyone know of where I can find this study? I don't think gender should matter, but if this is the truth and their is a dental shortage, then more chairs should be available in dental schools!

I guess I can answer this question as an economist and as a woman.

As an economist: A woman who gives up her DDS/DMD to raise kids must have either a)saved up a heck of a lot of money in the prior 8 yrs, not counting student loans b)Married a rich husband (hey,hook a fellow sister up) c) A nice inheritance. It isn't easy to write off the opportunity cost of $100,000+/year in forgone income in order to raise kids.

That was a British study and over there you are given up to a year (mostly paid) of maternity leave per child. That doesn't apply here (max 6-8 weeks w/pay). The beauty of dentistry is that you can make a good income and raise a family if you so choose. Both men and women realize the need to have a balance between work and life. Obviously women need more downtime, but that doesn't always translate to giving up dentistry unless a),b) or c) above apply to you
 
Did you even read the article?

Apparently none of you want to help the millions of people who are without access to dental care. You'd rather the dental schools remain small and accept applicants who will most likely work part time, just so that you can have a larger demand for you business and more money? That's what I'm hearing.

Yes, I am trying to promote healthy discussion.

Did you not read my post? I freaken told you that i was speaking purely economically and that I wasn't referring to the negative public health implication of not having enough dentists which is obviously a problem. Read the full post...
 
i have no intentions of working 8 years and quitting...after 8 years of school to get there...i don't think so.

I may however only be at my own practice half of the time, and the other half of my time work somewhere in public health dentistry because I really see a need for people there. But then again, I may only do that as a retirement job or as volunteer work and be at my practice full-time until 55-60.
 
PS. The article is a British Journal and is talking about Britain, not the US.

And I don't agree with the statement that women only work 2.5 days a week because I know plenty of men dentists who work 3 days a week and work less hours in a day to make it to their children's sports events. Don't put all the blame on women....its not the sole problem to lack of dentists and access to dental care in the country. It also has to do with a lack of insurance, more dentists of both sexes living the lifestyle of less days worked per week and more vacations, and the baby boomers retiring at a rate higher than that of dental students graduating (in the near future), and a few schools have closed in the past 5 years also leading to a decline in graduates.

You have to remember its expensive for a school to increase its graduates, they may only have 80 seats in the sim lab, and to add 20 students, it would cost not only the money to buy the new equipment, but also to restructure the lab. It may also mean more seats in the actual clinic to ensure that you have easy access to work on your patients and don't have to jump hoops to find a chair and a time slot that fits your patients needs as well.

Bottom line, the problem isn't women in dentistry, and the problem can't just be solved by adding students randomly to the class size without lots of costs and configurations involved.

(ASDOH plans to slowly add from 54-80 over next few years...this year they are supposedly going up to 60ish)
 
I think the author of the letter to the editor, because it's not an article, is rather narrow minded. Frankly, there are many other factors, especially in the US as opposed to England, that create the divide in accessing care. If we really wanted to solve the issue here, we would probably do much better by pouring billions of dollars into training young children from an early age who showed an aptitude in science and manual dexterity and who grow up in the impoverished and isolated parts of America where access to dental care is nearly impossible to become dentists. Training from an early age for the position in society they will take and instilling the sense that they are being given all this in order for them to return and help in the communities they grew up in. More or less, we would ignore the wealthy asian, white, mormon, sects of the populous who would, more often than not, grow up to start practices in wealthy areas doing mostly cosmetic dentistry and not allow them into dental schools as a priority over these other students. This would go a long way to helping to alleviate the access to care problems that face much of America. We could also socialize dentistry or make all health care and health care workers into government positions without private practice as an option.

Of course, I don't think these options are good ones. I also think using the maxim "It's for the greater good," as an excuse to explain away a sexist agenda in acceptance policies would be a bad option.

I don't think conversations such as this one brought up by your post are realistic or relevant. Face it. we're not going to turn the clocks back 300 years and all say "Harrah for pragmatic sexism." There is probably a correlation between society frowning upon a husband beating his wife when she speaks up against him and has...gasp...opinions...and the rise in broken homes and marriages. Broken homes and marriages probably have something to do with the rise in troubled youths. I still don't think all that many people would say...for the greater good of the children, men should be able to beat their wives again.

You apparently want to bring forth a healthy discussion on, more or less, turning back the clock.
 
i'm amazed at the many doctors-to-be that haven't grasped the "there, their and they're" concept yet.
 
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i'm amazed at the many doctors-to-be that haven't grasped the "there, their and they're" concept yet.

Does it really matter? We're all just typing and posting, I doubt most of us take the time to check over our typing to make sure we used the correct spelling each time before submitting. You, for example, forgot to capitalize the I at the beginning of your sentence. I often type "you" when I mean to type "your" or type the word "accept" when I mean "except." I also make comma splice errors, and incorrectly place my modifiers.

The fact is, I understand the concepts, but I don't care...this is SDN, not my personal statement for dental applications.
 
Doesn't really matter... in fact the majority of posts/comments on this site are as trivial. Capitilization, punctuation (for the most part) and sentence stucture constitutes proof-reading and slows down the "speedy poster." Not having certain things like the "your & you're" or the "there, their and they're" being automatic is surprising, seeing as how they don't slow you down. To me, you don't do it means you don't know it.
 
Doesn't really matter... in fact the majority of posts/comments on this site are as trivial. Capitilization, punctuation (for the most part) and sentence stucture constitutes proof-reading and slows down the "speedy poster." Not having certain things like the "your & you're" or the "there, their and they're" being automatic is surprising, seeing as how they don't slow you down. To me, you don't do it means you don't know it.

Like Drjeffrey said...who cares? In case the answer was not apparent before, no one on this forum lame enough cept maybe you. Go read a book or combat spelling issues with the local elementary school.

PS: Read this: In there house, their was four brothers? They;re use to run. OOOH...bet that made you all crazy huh? good stuff :cool:
 
Sorry it's tough to hit the "there, they're and their" on the fly. That's all I said buddy.
 
Like Drjeffrey said...who cares? In case the answer was not apparent before, no one on this forum lame enough cept maybe you. Go read a book or combat spelling issues with the local elementary school.

Elementary school? Maybe they should enroll you. That sounds about your speed. Or you're. Know which is right?

So yea yea, I may be lame expecting you get that **** right so I apologize.
 
Elementary school? Maybe they should enroll you. That sounds about your speed. Or you're. Know which is right?

So yea yea, I may be lame expecting you to get that **** right so I apologize.

Hahaha...its lame that it took you 2 post and 12 minutes to come up with that come back. anyway, you bore me...just stick with the spell check bud.

Oh, btw you showed poor grammar in your last response. i went ahead and bolded the missing word. its alright, it must have been due to the fast nature of the post, next time take a couple more minutes.
 
Apparently none of you want to help the millions of people who are without access to dental care.

Save it, n00b.

Most male dentists don't work a full week, so why should women? As for admitting fewer women into dental school, I'm more likely to be killed in a car wreck than some women are to get pregnant - should I be denied too?
 
Did you even read the article?

Apparently none of you want to help the millions of people who are without access to dental care. You'd rather the dental schools remain small and accept applicants who will most likely work part time, just so that you can have a larger demand for you business and more money? That's what I'm hearing.

Yes, I am trying to promote healthy discussion.

More chairs open in dental schools will not give more access to people. All more chairs will do is further saturate the already saturated cities in America. Most people would rather make a little less and live where it is convient for them then make more money and go to areas that need dentists.
 
okay okay...stop. Envision and Disco...seriously. Disco's original comment wasn't targetted at anyone in particular and was his opinion. So was mine...I don't personally think it matters, but if it is something Disco notices and wants to comment on, whatever, that fine. Now the two of you are just bickering at each other. Come on...hug it out
 
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