There’s no correlation. I’ve seen people with excellent grades make very poor clinicians. They were very good at memorizing though. I’ve seen people ranked lower but are better doctors. Clinical competency and understanding how to communicate with patients has nothing to do with memorizing the Krebs cycle.
Are you sure? I may be wrong but looking at multiple resources they aren’t even top 10. One has florida ranked at #32. Cheaper than to live in the rural Midwest? Does state income tax correlate cost of living? I agree with you if you’re comparing it to other popular and saturated areas
If it’s so easy to get a job that pays $200k/year (for working only 4 days/wk) as a new grad like what you described, then dentists shouldn’t have problem paying back their $500-600k student loan debt. If what you said is true, then one can easily increase his/hers salary to $300k/year by working 5-6 days/wk, instead of just 4 days/wk. If what you said is true, then why do many dentists (and some successful ones like Coldfront and Daurang) on this forum say dentistry is not worth pursuing any more (due to oversaturation, decrease in insurance reimbursements, expansion of corps, high student loan debt etc)?
The few people who I personally know who are in the $500k+ debt load are doing exactly what you are saying or some type of federal forgiveness program. As associates they are working 5-6 days a week, making as much as they can. They are making it work. Most of my dentist friends and I went to a state school where our incomes on 4 days a week are plenty to cover the loans and still live a good life. It’s pretty easy to do the math if you know your debt and your ballpark income to see if dental school is worth it to you. Which is rather subjective.
So true. I know a lot of people who graduated with significant amount of debt and yet refuse to move away from major cities to earn more money or save. They worked so hard for the past 8 years and now feel entitled to live lavishly. Just paying the minimum payments on their loan.
IMO just working hard is not enough. There are definitely some compromises you need to make especially for a new grad with 500k+ student loans. Graduating 10-15 years ago is not the same as today. Can you really start out making 150k a year while living in the heart of New York City or LA surrounded by amazing restaurants where number of potential partners are also limitless? I don’t think so. You need to work hard and that means you have to work a lot of weekends and that takes away time from enjoying going on dates, spending time with family, going to bars, having fun, etc.
I agree that not all new grad associates make $100-120k across America but I still stand by my earlier statement that making $200k/year for working 4 days a week is above average….and not the norm for a new grad dentist. Any boss that pays a clueless new grad, who has no known previous work experience, $200k/year for working only 4 days/wk must be crazy person…..unless he’s in the area, where there is a shortage of DDS and the office has an unlimited supply of patients. With the new openings of new dental schools and expansions of corp offices, such area is not easy to find anymore. If it's so easy, I would strongly recommend dentistry to everyone even when they have to take out $5-600k loan.
Hard work is a prerequisite, being flexible in going where the money's at is another. If you're going to accumulate that amount of debt, then you must be prepared to do what it takes.
Hard work is the key ingredient for success. If you work hard, you can do very well even in states like CA, NY. The harder you work and the higher volume of patients you treat, the more clinical experience you will gain and the more efficient you will become. Each of my offices doesn’t have enough patients due to oversaturation. To keep myself busy, I book as many patients in one day as possible and work as few days per week as possible. And for the other free days in the week, I travel to work at other offices. I travel to 6 different offices (4 are my own and 2 are Corp offices) and I treat more than 1500 active ortho patients per month, which are many times more patients than what most of my colleagues see per month. More patients = more money.
Not a fan of the noisy engine and bumpy ride of a sport car. I’ve just return the leased Model X to Tesla and got this X7. It’s not as fast as your Cayenne but this car makes me feel like I am on airplane. I didn’t think I would ever go back to driving another gasoline car again.
Thank you for this reply. Again, I don’t have absolutely no intention of opening a practice, I just wanted to know if associating for life was an option that SOME dentists take. And that owning a practice wasn’t some kind of requirement when I don’t even know a thing about that yet. I think the end goal is practice ownership, but if I enjoy associateships for me, I don’t see why I should have to open a practice.
Keep in mind ownership is not just about earning more. Someone alluded to this earlier, but as an associate you don't have control over the practice systems, what assistants you get, what materials/equipment you have, or what procedures you get to do. It may not seem like a big deal at first, but it can get frustrating very quickly. In my experience it was hard to find an associateship that had everything. My best role had all of these, was earning well, but owners tended to cherry pick cases and load my schedule with just fillings and srp, which got tiring after a while. My point is, its going to be difficult to find a perfect practice you can associate at for your entire career. You will have to adapt to these less ideal factors or keep bouncing around offices to find something ideal. Bear in mind, though, for private offices, if your boss knows you never want to own, they may eventually drop you in favor of someone who will eventually buy their practice.
So what would you recommend instead at this time?
What about PA or CRNA?
Wouldn’t you say working as a CRNA as an “associate” would come with the same issues being an associate dentist? Essentially you’re someone’s employee. And the pay is relatively the same
Might be better to ask why does anyone need to or want to be a dentist?
These are all very good fields but it's extremely hard to get into a med school.....much harder than dental school, especially if you have an Asian last name. My brother got 9 interviews for Derm. He published and presented his research thesis while he was in med school. But he didn't match to any of these Derm programs. He did 3 years of internal medicine and then another 3 years for GI fellowship.
BINGO.
I agree with all of this. People in dental school are pretty spoiled and entitled. They think they deserve a mercedes and a 3500 square foot house pretty quick after graduation. They won’t say that but that’s what will end up happening with many of them. Heck some people in my class say they don’t even want to work. It’s stupid lolThis. I think most of us have some level of hard work instilled in us so that's not an issue. Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten into dental school. Problem is being flexible lol.
Most of the answers said to me from others when I ask them these questions:
Would you join the military and payback only 4 years of your life in exchange for zero loans? nahhh... I ain't moving overseas or have the military send me on a ship, etc..
Would you join the NHSC and work in rural areas for only 4 years of your life in exchange for zero loans? nahhh I ain't living in ****ty rural areas...
It's amazing that you were able to net $500K minimum in your FIRST YEAR but I honestly don't know of anyone who did that in my class. Maybe if you have parents that own a PP for you to walk straight into? I still doubt they would be banking $500K though..
I think you are both an amazing clinician and businessman
I really like seeing positive views like yours and @charlestweed and also hate seeing the doom and gloom about dentistry on this website b/c it's simply not true for everyone.
Exactly my point
Real estate and IT mostly, but I'm sure I'm leaving out others. You can make a good six figure salary doing either of those things, and you don't have to go to school for 10 years and take massive debt with you along the way. I would still choose dentistry over those other fields though due to my masochistic nature
Thank you for the kind words. Actually, I was just like your cousins. I too wanted to drive nice car and live in a nice house as soon as possible. I wanted instant gratification. Life is too short. I didn’t want to wait to get a nice car until I am in my 50s. I chose to work on the weekends because I didn’t want to drive a Camry. When I was in HS and college, I delivered newspapers and worked as a busboy on the weekends. So it isn’t a big deal. Not having to face the heavy traffic problem on the weekends is a plus. Having Tues and Thurs off allows me to run errands because all the businesses are opened. I can go out with my wife and the restaurants are less busy on the weekdays. Since most of my patients prefer the weekend appointments, Saturdays and Sundays are my big money days.
The guy I was in talks with to replace in his rural practice encouraged me to do the military route. I do regret it in some ways since I won’t be able to set up shop immediately. Perhaps minority ownership. I’m curious to what service members can achieve on the side while paying back their time
I'm not sure about other dentists, but I am around 1.5 to 2MM at 30 hours a week, depending if you include some capital investments. That's pretax of course. Less work, less school, less pressure, and more money. What else can you ask for?
This question seems to be the crux of many discussions on this board. I don’t know a single owner who works at least 4 days a week that makes $150-200k (maybe according to their w-2 lol). The reality is those are early associate numbers a lot of places… why on earth would you deal with the headaches and risk of ownership for associate money? I will admit my contacts are mostly in the Midwest and none in super saturated major metros. But I was recently looking at practices to buy, so I’ve seen a fair amount of practice numbers (in multiple locales). Those are part-time owner numbers in competitive markets or those who are close to retirement and have given up lol. Every practice I was looking at the owners were doing atleast $300k+, many $400k+, and even some $500k+. $150-200k are associate numbers with less than 5 years of experience in most parts of the country.
I felt this way in school because you guys have cush schedules, studying in coffee shops and listening to recorded lectures. Even in your clinical years you don't really experience the stress of performance while caring for patients. Medical school gets an A+ for lifestyle.
Absolutely. That was one of my main reasons… my father was a physician who worked weekends regularly. Dentistry also attracts those who are a bit more entrepreneurial on average compared to Med school I would think. Much higher chance of owning your own business in dentistry. I always wanted to be in healthcare. Dentistry offered me a shorter path with easier hours and more autonomy. And from my perspective, better pay per hour generally speaking. Most definitely in my case as an owner dentist who works 30 hours a week.
I'm assuming you have multiple practices right?
No, I have one.
And here I thought I needed to go OMFS and have a wizzy factory to pull numbers like that.
Dont fool yourself Tanman is an outlier, making 1.5 to 2 milli even pretax put him into a very small select group of docs doing these number in a single GP office.
Dentist lie. They only count their clinical time as working. So if you own a business and provide patient care Monday - Thursday you say you work 4 days we week and forget that you run payroll and go shopping for the business on Friday, and handle calls or go to the office to fix something on Saturday etc.
Proper delegation and solid systems in place really help reduce the extra work. What you are saying is fair to a degree, however, I feel like you are over exaggerating the negatives of the work life balance. Though I suppose it’s different for everyone. I work less hours (total, including administrative duties) as an owner than I did as an associate and make about double. Plus more favorable taxes to boot! Are you an owner yourself?
I agree dentists do have a penchant for exaggeration, when I look back to March 2020, I found it interesting to see many of the same dentists on FB investment groups, who just prior to COVID said how highly successful and profitable their practices were along with the success of all their midas touch with investments. Well come COVID many were quit panicked and seem to be shocked to hear that they should have 3 months of emergency expenses at least for both personal and business, they said it wasnt possible to have this. Considering the practice gross of many of these practices touted and take homes, you would have thought they should have sailed the pandemic with no concerns.
Alot of the panic was from realizing they were going to be out of incomes for a bit of time so because of the drop in income from lack of pffice production and drop in investments simultaneously, these were individuals I watched who from previous statements were 100% stocks with no bonds because they knew they could handle the volatility, and in previous statements said it it was dumb to have any sort of emergency funds etc, so it was an eye opener to see people who run seminars on successful practices panick at being closed for 2 months.
He said he works 30 hours a week, one practice, bread and butter dentistry no fancy full arch cases or whatever on another thread. I would think you would have to be churning such incredible volume of restorations, crowns, and endo in a day.
I don’t own a practice right now. I do run a small business in addition to my associateship.
