What is your work life like?

Dentistry is one field of medicine that you could somewhat have a set schedule and don’t need to be oncall like other branches of medicine. Work life consists of seeing patients 4-5 days a week and providing treatment for them. I start work at 9AM and end my day at 5. I see between 10-14 patients a day performing a variety of services including dental examinations, fillings, extractions or pulling out teeth, crown and caps, root canal treatments, and gum surgery.

I have a team of support staff that help me. My team includes my hygienist that performs all dental cleanings, deep cleanings, laser gum treatments, home care instructions, and oral health education. I have four registered dental assistants, two of them are registered dental assistants with extended function (RDAEF). All assistants help take x rays, prepare the room for me, help me with charting, help me with procedures and clean up the operatories after each patient. Our RDAEF, do more. They help me with taking dental impressions (molds) after crown prep, they help with surgeries and extractions. They help with temporary restorations, they also call the patients the next day to make sure they are doing well.

Dentistry could be very rewarding as a dentist is able to get their patients out of pain and misery. Many patients come to the dental office in pain. When they leave and after we diagnose and treat them, they won’t have the pain and discomfort. Knowing that I helped them get rid of their problem, makes me happy. Having practiced dentistry for over 20 years, I can easily say that as a dentist, there have been a few minor dental emergencies over the years that required me to leave home and come to the dental office to take care of my patient. Normally I don’t have to come to the office and I can give them instructions or even call in medications over the phone. I find dentistry extremely satisfying and a great career for candidates that would like to get into health care but don’t care for sleepless nights spent at the hospitals because they are on call.

Pros

• Job stability: Even during the worst economy, there is always a job for a dentist. People need dentists as dental care is an important part of a person’s well being.
• Excellent pay: Dentist salary is often on the top of the charts in the U.S. According to U.S. News, dentists make a median salary of $155,000 a year in 2019. The Bureau of Labor statistics projects 3% employment growth for dentists between 2019 and 2029. In that period an estimated 4000 jobs will open up. The mean hourly salary for a dentist is $85.70 in 2019.
• Interactive: It’s never a boring day when you see patients. Patients present the dentist with multiple oral health issues and the dentist has the opportunity to present the best treatment plan for each individual. For people like me who love solving problems and who get excited when faced with challenging situations, dentistry is the best career.
• Flexibility in schedule: As a dentist, you can pretty much set up your own schedule. Many dentists work only 3 days a week. You also can work independently and at your own pace. A dentist is in charge of their own schedule and treatment. People that love working independently, will love dentistry.

Cons

• Emotionally draining: Most patients don’t like the dentist and they make sure the dentist knows that. It could be emotionally draining if every day you see patients that don’t want to be there, don’t want to pay you and think all of their dental pain is because of you even though that is not true. I remember my early years of practice, I would get upset and hurt every time a patient told me “No offense but I don’t like the dentist.” After a few years, it was normal for me to hear this and I didn’t let it get to me.
• Pain and strain in shoulders and joints: As a dentist practicing dentistry on a daily basis, you may develop pain in your back and shoulders if your posture is not good as you need to sit for hours on the doctor’s stool while treating patients. Also performing dental surgery needs extensive focus and patience. If you do one thing wrong, you may cut a major nerve or artery and that may cause permanent damage to the point that the patient may lose function and get locally paralized.
• Dental office management may be difficult: In dental school, they teach dentists how to perform dental procedures, how to diagnose and treat each problem. They don’t teach dentists how to run a business. When dentists graduate dental school and open their own practice, they are faced by many business challenges that they may not know anything about. This could be very stressful. It took me a few years to figure out how to run my dental practice and be profitable.

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