Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Dentistry Considered

Before my trip to Guatemala, I had never really seriously considered dentistry as a career option. Dr. Wayne had a good influence on me, though, and I'm now considering it very seriously. An interesting avenue just presented itself in the form of oral/maxillofacial surgery (via my mom, who apparently likes to discuss my potential career with her Medical Director coworker). According to my mom, paraphrasing her coworker, "you will make 1.5 M a year and you will be doing "God's work"...you would be recontructing people who have been in auto accidents, and would have long term relationships with patients who are very appreciative." Ha... my mom's way of summing things up (read: bluntness) is so funny. I'm pretty sure that description's not in the brochure. Although the money's not a factor for me, dentistry in general is an attractive option simply because, practically, it offers the thing about family medicine I desire - patient relationships - and less of the insurance/compensation headache. After working with Wayne in Guatemala, I've come to realize there's much more medicine involved in dentistry than I had previously thought. When Wayne initially told me to consider dentistry, I mostly dismissed the idea. I thought that it would lack the problem-solving of medicine; I was proven wrong. I also enjoy the technical aspects of surgery, and so a residency program in OMS would allow me to practice that (from what I understand, in much less time than a surgical specialty in medicine). It's something to think about, at least. I'll probably take the DAT sometime after the MCAT. It seems the material overlaps a bit, and it's only 4.25 hours, instead of 8. It's strange to imagine myself as a toddler, telling my mom I wanted to be a dentist. It was the first profession in which I expressed interest, and my mom tells me she shifted my attention elsewhere because she had heard about their high suicide rates. I find that whole situation really funny. What kind of kid says he wants to be dentist? Man, I'm weird.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

my best friend did the dentistry route, i think he loves it. my family dentist was as important to me as my family doc. the only downside is that it's hard to talk with all the instruments. but talking is overrated after 5 minutes :)

2/16/2006 10:40:00 PM  
Blogger Ali said...

Ha, that's a pretty good point, actually. I hadn't even thought about that.

2/17/2006 08:34:00 AM  

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