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Yet another Medicine vs Dentistry thread.


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I managed to get into both medicine and dentistry this year in Canada. Unfortunately, I don't particularly feel any draw to either of these professions anymore after a personal event earlier this year. I wish it could be different but it's just the way it is. I don't intend to squander the chance I got since I know both of these professions would give me what I want now, which is essentially money and job stability. At first, I was told that dentistry offers a better lifestyle and money and medicine has the edge of prestige (which I care nothing for) and arguably stability. However, I've been reading up on this subject and it appears that physicians make significantly more than dentists, even in professions like family medicine.

Given that lifestyle and money right now are most likely the only factors in my choice of profession, which one should I pick?

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hey there, in my opinion, dentistry has bigger risks (due to uncontrolled foreign grads easily coming back from AUS/US/NZ and even those from non-accredited countries such as europe and I know lots of people who are in dent in the US and planning on coming back). Also, less stable because dentistry is a private sector unlike medicine which is government-funded so no fighting for business

But essentially, the choice is yours - choose something you won't regret in 20 years when you look back 

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5 hours ago, 1997 said:

There are specialties in medicine that seem to offer a better lifestyle and compensation than dentistry, and the overhead in dentistry is probably much greater than in most medical specialties. Also, you'll have the luxury of having a lot of fields to choose from when you graduate from medicine if you still don't know what to do, however the catch is that you need to keep grinding in medicine since you'll need to have a solid application for residency, whereas for dentistry you don't need to pursue anything education after a DMD to start working. Medical school is also significantly cheaper than dental school. Depending on where you live, the market can already be very saturated with dentists (In montreal, it feels like there are 3 dental clinics on every block).

What are some examples of these specialties (aside from dermatology)?

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24 minutes ago, OwnerOfTheTARDIS said:

I've heard that pathology and family med (depending on how you set up your practice) provide a pretty good lifestyle in terms of schedule and minimal call. 

Cool. I might look into those specialties

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2 hours ago, Clapton said:

Data for family physicians according to the 2007 National Physicians Survey:

  • Average work week: 49.8 hours

I'm not sure if hours per week proves Dentistry > FM. Yeah primary care physicians work more on average, but their work is substantially less physically demanding. 

 

 

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34 minutes ago, prehealth101 said:

I'm not sure if hours per week proves Dentistry > FM. Yeah primary care physicians work more on average, but their work is substantially less physically demanding. 

 

 

It's also way easier to find full time work as a family physician compared to a general dentist, especially in large metropolitan centres.

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Depends, I know some new grads who did very well even their first year out of school (in big cities like Toronto/Mtl).

And I dont think Dentistry > FM /or FM > Dentistry. In my mind, choosing Dentistry is like choosing a speciality right away... You need to be sure that you like the job. 

IMO, Dentistry is a very rewarding profession and the lifestyle is great (35-40 hours a week with no call). In average, if you're an associate, you'll probably make a little less than a FM but in both case, you're going to live well. I think that the most important question for the OP is: Would you like to be a Dentist (procedures/surgery, less "life-threatening situations", working in the mouth/head and neck region, etc).

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27 minutes ago, 1997 said:

Dermatology is probably the main one. I've also heard of EM, physiatry and psychiatry (these are generally paid much less but the hours are good).

I wouldn't call Emergency Med a lifestyle specialty. You deal with crazy hours and on-call.  It's also very competitive for CaRMS so you have to work very hard during school to build your application and get the right electives just to match.

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22 minutes ago, OwnerOfTheTARDIS said:

I wouldn't call Emergency Med a lifestyle specialty. You deal with crazy hours and on-call.  It's also very competitive for CaRMS so you have to work very hard during school to build your application and get the right electives just to match.

Emerg doesn't have any call, it's all shift work which definitely isn't for everybody (or most people...).

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33 minutes ago, hero147 said:

Emerg doesn't have any call, it's all shift work which definitely isn't for everybody (or most people...).

Probably depends on the community - my dad did ER on Vancouver island and sometimes had to be on-call, but it was a smaller hospital and 13 years ago. According to the Royal College, on-call is minimal for most EM physicians, but some do quite a bit.

IMG_5514.PNG

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Lifestyle & money alone are not going to give you fulfillment when at work week after week and year after year. You need to be able to enjoy your work, enjoy your professional challenges and accomplishments and look forward to returning to work each day. Making money and not enjoying your work would not be fulfilling or fun regardless of the good hours. We are talking about your life here. 

 

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I agree with Bambi; I would not want to be in a career that I was not interested in, regardless of the money.  I think being unsatisfied in one aspect of your life, like your career, has the potential to make you feel unhappy in general.  Like others have mentioned, medicine offers a lot of different career paths with the different specialties, whereas dentistry is more focused.  Maybe it's worth exploring the different specialties and determining whether you can see yourself in any.  If you can't, is there another career that you feel drawn to?

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Dentistry is lots of stress because it is very much so like a business, medicine will allow you to have more of a variety of higher and lower stress opportunities. Medicine allows you more variety with face-to-face specialties, research, desk specialties (pathology, radiology) etc.. It is a longer haul but you start being paid as you go so it isn't that bad. 

Money for both will be very good, I wouldn't be worried. Lifestyle is similar although dentistry you can control your hours a bit better but you also have to work much more sometimes. 

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On 13 juillet 2017 at 11:29 PM, qwerty2222 said:

Dentistry is lots of stress because it is very much so like a business, medicine will allow you to have more of a variety of higher and lower stress opportunities. Medicine allows you more variety with face-to-face specialties, research, desk specialties (pathology, radiology) etc.. It is a longer haul but you start being paid as you go so it isn't that bad. 

Money for both will be very good, I wouldn't be worried. Lifestyle is similar although dentistry you can control your hours a bit better but you also have to work much more sometimes. 

If you decide to be an associate, you won't have to deal with the "business" side of dentistry (not as much as if you are the owner).

You won't make as much money, but it's less stressful.

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20 hours ago, Clapton said:

If you decide to be an associate, you won't have to deal with the "business" side of dentistry (not as much as if you are the owner).

You won't make as much money, but it's less stressful.

So dentistry is a risky business? 

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48 minutes ago, staystaystay22 said:

So dentistry is a risky business? 

It is inherently risky because it is comparatively more capital intensive than, let's say for sake of argument, family medicine. You have higher overhead from operating the various types of machinery in a dental clinic, that you otherwise would not incur in a traditional family physician clinic. Also, annual repair & maintenance upkeep of the equipment to make sure they are in good repair are additional costs that you need to consider downstream. 

Not saying that dentists don't make profits, but just saying that their operating leverage is much lower for dental clinic than medical clinics. Degree of operating leverage (DOL) is a measure of how revenue growth translates into growth in operating income. It is a measure of leverage, and of how risky, or volatile, a company's operating income is. We normally expect dental clinics to have worse DOL than medical clinics by way of dental clinics being much more capital-intensive. Thus, the profits are much more "risky."

Hope this sheds more light on this topic.

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