The Dentistry Appreciation Thread

[ImaDentt2014]

I'm starting a new thread where we can share and discuss the great things about dentistry.

 

Perhaps if this thread grows enough, it can become a sticky thread (via the moderators), and predentists can have something inspiring and positive to read at the top of PM101. 

 

I'll start by posting my message form a recent, other thread, below. 

 

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I am a dentist, who graduated from Schulich in 2014. This thread has gotten out of control. There are a handful of posters who are knowledgeable (either dentists or dental students) and then those looking from the other side of the pond (predentists) that are worried and perhaps misinformed in parts. 

Predentists: I understand the worry. I heard it when I was in dental school too. But this thread has been blown way, way out of proportion. A few painters seem upset about things, and the comments and their facts are spiralling down. 

I work in Oakville and Woodbridge ON, both close to Toronto. One practice was a new practice four years ago, one is with a long established single dentist practice. 

I am a competent dentist, I'm cautiously quick at restorative, always felt comfortable with endo (root canal therapy) and enjoy prosthodontics (dentures). I would put myself in the top 1/3 of my class clinically, but I am not gifted, just a regular recent grad. 

I produce on any normal day 1000-2000. If I had to pick an average, I'd say $1500. On a slow day it could be 600 (my lowest day in a year) and on a good day with a denture insertion for example it could be $3500 (my highest day this year was around $4200). I get paid 40% of collections and don't know a single friend working for less then 40%, although I'm sure someone is. 

My first year of private practice I made $170,000. With tuition tax credits, I barely paid income tax. This helped wipe out a huge Amin t of student debt for me (I paid for dental school myself with summer work and loans). 

My second year I'm on track to make slightly more. 

I keep in touch with all my dental school friends, and my best friends and I talk production numbers honestly, it's not a taboo subject for us. The lowest I know is a friend working full time at a dental practice on Liberty village in Toronto, and he's making around $110,000. 

With incorporating your dental practice, income taxes on your corporation are 10-15.5%, then you take a $65,000 salary and save for retirement within your dental Corp. 

It really doesn't take much to produce $1000 per day. I'm not just saying that. It's nothing. Even slow practices in downtown Toronto. 

There is crazy gloom and doom in this thread. I won't call anyone out, but some commenters are simply not accurate here. 

Dentistry is a ton of fun too. I can't imagine sitting at a desk. When I have breaks in between patients, even long ones, I'm either working up a case, writing notes, or watching Netflix, snapchat, Facebook on my phone etc. I plan to work 4 days per week soon. Even looking forward, as bad as they make it out to be, you'll always make a pretty good salary in a great job. Even if you saw 3 patients per day you could make a great salary. You can afford a mortgage, you can marry, have kids (future dentists), it's a great life. 

I'll stop by tomorrow to answer questions for a new grad if anyone has them, though they probably won't be as long as this post was. 

Cheer up friends, it's gonna be good. 

[ImaDentt2014]

member_225, on 18 Aug 2016 - 11:16 PM, said:

Thank you for this post. Do you mind explaining what's in bold a little more? I didn't really understand. 

 

I'm glad to know I didn't waste 500$ on taking the DAT this november   

 

With incorporating your dental practice, income taxes on your corporation are 10-15.5%, then you take a $65,000 salary and save for retirement within your dental Corp.

 

A corporation is a separate legal entity, that has income tax like a person does. Apple can be a corporation, with 50,000 employees, and shareholders own apple's company through stock. Dentists can form a corporation, where the revenue is dental work, instead of selling iphones (in the case of apple). The dental pay is paid to the corporation. The corporation can then pay the dentist whatever the shareholders decide (and the shareholder is the dentist), and any money left in the corpation (ie. not paid out) is taxed only at small business tax, rather than personal income tax levels. Personal income tax at the 100-200k yearly mark is ~50%, whereas small corporation tax is ~11%.

 

You net pay much less in taxes, bec the corp pays 11% on any money remaining inside the corp, and the dentist's perosnal pay is taxed less than the 50%, becuase they have a lower reported income. 

 

Example:

 

Associate bills $170k in a year. 

 

No corporation: Associate pays ~50% tax, and keeps $85k

 

With corporation: Associate pays themselves 70k from the corparation as personal salary or dividends. The income tax on 70k income is 27.75% (compared to 50% if 170k salary), so they keep $50,750 personally. Now, they paid themselves a salary of 70k from the corp, so there corp has 100k in income to report for the year. The corp pays 11% tax (because that's the small business corp tax rate if income is less than $500,000), and the corp keeps $89,000. 

 

So by incorporating, you've kept 51k+89k = 140k out of the 170k you made (I did these calcs on the fly on my phone, so possible I missed / screwed something up, but you get the idea).

 

Money you keep in your corp can be dividended to parents (lower income tax) invested in stocks etc. 

[WomboCombo]

How did you decide on dental (I don't think this question is related to the threads on this website that you are involved with so I thought I would just ask in private)?

 

Did you ever consider medicine and if you did, why did you not pursue it?

[Mighty Molar]

I'm a full time associate dentist and seasonal stock trader (as a left hand job and a hobby). I really enjoy both the business and clinical side of dentistry. The clinic i work for is just 20min away from downtown, and in a super saturated area. On an average day, I could clear around 1200-2200 billing, and keep 40% of that for myself However, I think the perk only come once you own a clinic and use the incorporation rule to do a bunch of cool stuff

[ImaDentt2014]

How did you decide on dental (I don't think this question is related to the threads on this website that you are involved with so I thought I would just ask in private)?

 

Did you ever consider medicine and if you did, why did you not pursue it?

I liked the operative component of it, while still having regular hours. I work 9-4, 9-5, or 8-3, 5 days per week, and will choose to go to four days within a year or two. 

 

I did consider medicine, but thought dentistry was more the type of life I wanted to live. Medicine has many interesting components to it, but its mainly diagnose and write a prescription, or if you're a surgeon its, do occassional surgery, with lots of pre and post op, and crazy hours. Not for me. 

 

I can't fathom being an accountant looking at columns of numbers, a banker toiling on excel spreadsheets working crazy hours, a programmer staring at a computer. Brutal careers IMO. Dentistry just fits everything I wanted in life. 

[WomboCombo]

What are your thoughts on the social aspect of dentistry and your interactions with dental staff (i.e. is it something you enjoy for the most part, do you enjoy the team atmosphere, etc.)?

[ImaDentt2014]

Staff can be great or a thorn in your side, depending on the staff. Inpersonally like all my staff and enjoy our interactions, as well as my relationship with my principal dentists. I like working in a team with other people compared to working in isolation / independently.