Dentaltown May 2021 - 10

professional courtesy
column

Special Set of Skills
It's graduation season and I know this is the time
of year when new dentists ask themselves if they made
the right choice. The debt burden is high and some of
the popular employment options can put you on a fast
track to burnout.
Consider for a moment that you're standing in a pool
of higher-ed graduates. Each year, there are 1.98 million
college graduates with bachelor's degrees, 820,100
with master's degrees and 184,070 with doctorate or
professional degrees.1
Out of nearly 3 million degrees, only 6,000 belong
to dentists. That should make you feel a bit special. The
yoke of educational debt, however, is a burden most
graduate students will bear. There are approximately
34,000 new lawyers every year and according to CNBC,
they're also facing a degree debt burden that has outpaced
inflation. Research goes on to say that 23% of their
work could be automated with existing technology.2
Take this moment to be glad you work with your hands.
I know there are a few dentists out there saying
that this profession is not what it used to be, and they
wouldn't recommend it to their own children.
There are a variety of issues facing new graduates
that will make their futures more challenging: fewer
ownership opportunities, income declines and pressure
from third-party payors to reduce reimbursement.
Consider the alternatives for an intelligent college
student: Graduate with an undergrad degree in engineering or computer science, land a job paying $100,000
a year to start, and by the time your dentist friend has
finished school, they are $400,000 in debt and missed
another $400,000 of earnings. So, the dental student
is at -$800,000 and the college grad is at +$400,000, a
differential of $1.2 million. It's not all about the money
and the dentist may very likely pass his
friend in lifetime earnings, but the impact
of this massive debt cannot be ignored.
Once you have made the commitment
to finish dental school, you will need to
give serious consideration to how you will
practice during your career. There are
likely multiple answers as your experience
and location changes over time. There
are two basic options in my view: " super
generalist " and " focused generalist. "

In the first case, you are often in a more rural area,
or at least a location with limited access to specialist
practices. To serve your patient population well, you
must master numerous specialty procedures. Performing
at this level is lucrative and can make a nice living with
a smaller practice population. The focused generalist
is the more common variety of general dentist who
chooses a few procedures, does them very efficiently
and earns income on volume.
The other consideration for life after dental school is
how much decision-making power you hope to have in
your career. I have found over the years that most people
drawn to the dental profession are seeking some level of
autonomy in their chosen profession. Do you want to be
an employee or a co-owner? Most new graduates will start
out as an employee of a large group organization or an
associate in private practice. I believe the long-term trend
is a desire for true autonomy in clinical decision-making,
materials used, technologies purchased, and procedures
performed. Beware of the opportunities that offer
autonomy in word but not in practice.
The future of dentistry is bright as long as we have
people on Earth who like to chew their food.
Do you have advice to share with new dental graduates? Please share your comments under
this column at dentaltown.com/magazine. If you
would like to send me a message via email, do so at
tom@dentaltown.com or on Twitter @ddsTom. ■
References
1.
https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates#:~:text=4%20
million%20or%2018%25%20of,have%20increased%2015%25%20
since%202010.
2.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/06/technology-is-changing-the-legal-professionand-law-schools.html

by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, editorial director, Dentaltown

MAY 2021 // dentaltown.com

DT0521_ProfessionalCourtesy_MM.indd 10

4/19/21 2:41 PM

http://www.dentaltown.com/magazine https://www.educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates#:~:text=4%20 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/06/technology-is-changing-the-legal-profession http://www.dentaltown.com

Dentaltown May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown May 2021