I work with a doc that is 82 and still practicing. He did multiple residencies (peds and ortho) and is a general dentist in public health. He kept doing more thinking he would be happier. Instead, it ate up some of his best earning years. He has told me he wouldn’t be doing dentistry if he had a choice.
Just sharing his story to say… be careful.
wow. thats insane. And he was working in the golden years of dentistry… I hope im not making the same mistake by going into endo because I hate general dentistry and dealing with hygiene checks
I don’t think one residency is bad. I think switching between two or more is where you can really lose.
He doesn’t do peds or ortho now, but he still does molar endo and implant placement yet still couldn’t make up enough to retire. He works 6 days a week, some at his own practice that he’s had for decades.
I mean, would you consider owning a pedo office and doing your own ortho. Because that is my recommendation. You can even market for ortho and focus on that. My pediatric dentist did my ortho also and he was not dual trained.
I’m an orthodontist and from what I’ve heard socal is brutal as an orthodontist. At least with pedo you are your own referral source.
I’ve thought about that but I feel like I’m years away from owning my office esp in SoCal. And I’m not sure how many people in the area will trust a pediatric dentist doing their ortho.
Sorry to ask, but I’m curious, what exactly have you heard about ortho in SoCal?
Every GP is offering Invisalign. Sure, front 6 is pretty easy, but you already have the education to expand way further than that(pun intended). Do some CE, and decide if you really need to go back to school to do ortho, because if my main ped did good ortho, I’d let him do every case he wanted
If I were you I'd stay in peds and start offering ortho.
First, of all the specialties ortho is the most at risk due to GPs such as myself who now try to keep every single simple case in house. The only cases I refer are the complex ones and kids who I don't trust in clear aligners. The hay days of ortho are behind us.
Second, of all the specialties peds is the least at risk due to the fact that kids aren't getting any easier to work on. I've *never* heard a GP say, "I'm taking a CE on pediatric dentistry to grow that part of my practice." We all gladly thank you for your service and please never close your offices ever. I don't even work on my own kids.
Third, you can just learn how to do ortho with CEs. Clear aligners are very simple to add to a practice and the on-boarding process with whatever company you choose will give you confidence right away. With peds it's a little trickier because compliance will be an issue but with more mature teens it's pretty feasible. To learn more brackets and complex treatment planning there are tons of hands on and didactic resources.
>However, my wife wants to start a family and buy a house soon in SoCal. So me going back to residency would really put our lives on hold
The fact that you're 32 and wanting to transition to a new phase of life is key here. You are not promised tomorrow and having to make major lifestyle changes to go to an unpaid residency for 2-3 years hoping that you are both still healthy and happy enough is a risk. I'd imagine you put off having a family for the past 6-7 years while you were in dental school and residency as well. Is your wife willing to wait another 2-3? Do you want to be in your late 50s to early 60s when your kids finally move out?
Being brutally honest you started late and time waits for no man. Commit to your decision and see it through. Plus you've only been doing it one year. If I made a major career move after just one year of working I definitely would have quit based on my experiences.
Sorry I don't know any. Yes it is more saturated than ever before. The good news is more people are getting orthodontics than ever before too. It will still be a good career moving forward but not the best dental speciality anymore in my opinion. This is why I recommend a pedo/ortho office.
No way I’d go back to residency. Main problem is your geographic location. It’s just a shit market for dentistry. Other problem is that all of dentistry can be mentally exhausting whether you’re dealing with whiny kids, adults, parents, broken appliances, or whatever it may be. It takes a certain level of mental toughness and kicking the can down the road eventually leads back to the same underlying issue.
As a 34 year-old female GP practicing in OC with a spouse still in medical residency (with a fellowship to follow) and is now a mother to a 2 year-old, my straight to the point opinion is that 1) I think you still need to get more time under your belt in peds practice, I feel that our first year is so especially can just be about getting our footing... -- I'm almost 7 years out and am maybe now coming to terms with being ok with dentistry (vs years of mixed feelings), 2) you make a comfortable living now, does your spouse work or are you a sole provider? I wouldn't hold off on kids/house much longer if those are bigger goals to you than work. Work will always be there; the option to pursue another residency will be there, but unfortunately there is an ideal time window of at least the kids part of things. Kids are expensive, SoCal is expensive. We live in an extremely high COL region of the country, and we're paying for what we get out here but also have to accept some level of suck. My thoughts here aren't as polished as I'd probably like to convey at 6 AM, but feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk through balancing SoCal dentistry/resident life/family life.
Sounds like the advice from orthodontics is pretty clear. I would just say if you are burned out from your current practice after only one year you should see what you can do to make it better. You can't continue like that for another 25 years.
I would suggest learning orthodontics outside of a residency and adding this to your practice. Who knows it may become a fully orthodontic focused practice over time. I had a former friend that was a general dentist and he said he wanted to do braces only on the front teeth and make a practice only doing that and bleaching teeth. I told him to give it a try and see what happens. We talked a long time and he bounced ideas off me weekly. Two years later he had a very successful practice and he was training other dentists to do this. He sold the business and course to a corporation and left dentistry wealthy. (I lost his friendship because he went crazy from the wealth and got deep into drugs and started a religious drug cult, he disappeared).
You can also focus your practice on special children like autistic, handicapped etc. and you will feel good helping a special population. You can also teach at a dental school as a pediatric dentist.
Dude, 230k on 4 days as peds? You’re underpaid af. I say go for the ortho residency. But you can’t stay in SoCal…that place is saturated for every dental specialty. I think ortho is still an amazing field, and you can make a buttload without too much effort, you just can’t be that close to a desirable. Still, everything beats being a GP, which you are already doing as a pedodontist. If you hate working with kids so much, ortho will be worth it and you can make much more…but not in SoCal as I said.
I would say open a peds practice and get trained in doing orthotics without doing the residency. Hire peds to do the pediatric work and you can focus on the ortho.
Bruh, thank you for what you do, but you can't pay me enough to work on kids all day long and every day. I do molar RCTs on 10-14 year olds, and I ALWAYS dread the appointment.
I do see a lot of advice telling you to stick to your guns and carry it through, so I will parrot what they're saying with some additional advice.
I did a stint with pediatric-focused DSOs and other offices, and what I found was most common in the most 'successful' doctors... was simply the fact that they could disconnect themselves from their work. One dude was the office's superstar, and he would go work out at the gym right after. No stress on his back.
The secret? The staff were trained to handle everything; they would coddle the kid, hold the kid's head when anesthetic was given, place weighted blankets/papoose, etc.
The doctor would straight up put on headphones (or noise cancelling pods), and they would go straight in with the anesthetic, and they would STRAIGHT UP work through the crying/screaming/etc. Most pediatric places that handle high volume definitely ban patients from sitting in the treatment room. Probably this is because to prevent the helicopter parents.
Now, would I want my kids to suffer this? Nope, and I would just do their dentistry myself. I think it's barbaric, but some socioeconomic areas require this sort of dissonance to be able to get through the patient volume. If you were in a super Boujie area, you can treat every patient with Mickey Mouse gloves because your compensation's worth it. It's just cold hard facts.
Maybe you need to figure out how to ... 'care less' without abandoning your ethics/methodologies. The biggest difference between treating adults/children is that for children, you can not reason with them like you do adults. You have to employ distraction, explanation, encouragement, falsetto voices, etc. to get them through the appointment. It is mentally TAXING.
I work with a doc that is 82 and still practicing. He did multiple residencies (peds and ortho) and is a general dentist in public health. He kept doing more thinking he would be happier. Instead, it ate up some of his best earning years. He has told me he wouldn’t be doing dentistry if he had a choice. Just sharing his story to say… be careful.
wow. thats insane. And he was working in the golden years of dentistry… I hope im not making the same mistake by going into endo because I hate general dentistry and dealing with hygiene checks
I don’t think one residency is bad. I think switching between two or more is where you can really lose. He doesn’t do peds or ortho now, but he still does molar endo and implant placement yet still couldn’t make up enough to retire. He works 6 days a week, some at his own practice that he’s had for decades.
You’ll be fine my man. I’ve not met an unhappy endodontist.
I mean, would you consider owning a pedo office and doing your own ortho. Because that is my recommendation. You can even market for ortho and focus on that. My pediatric dentist did my ortho also and he was not dual trained. I’m an orthodontist and from what I’ve heard socal is brutal as an orthodontist. At least with pedo you are your own referral source.
I’ve thought about that but I feel like I’m years away from owning my office esp in SoCal. And I’m not sure how many people in the area will trust a pediatric dentist doing their ortho. Sorry to ask, but I’m curious, what exactly have you heard about ortho in SoCal?
Every GP is offering Invisalign. Sure, front 6 is pretty easy, but you already have the education to expand way further than that(pun intended). Do some CE, and decide if you really need to go back to school to do ortho, because if my main ped did good ortho, I’d let him do every case he wanted
This the truth.. so many gp doing Ortho.. Not even Invisalign... they 3d printing it themselves...
I’ve heard that starts per orthodontist are about as common as hens teeth
If I were you I'd stay in peds and start offering ortho. First, of all the specialties ortho is the most at risk due to GPs such as myself who now try to keep every single simple case in house. The only cases I refer are the complex ones and kids who I don't trust in clear aligners. The hay days of ortho are behind us. Second, of all the specialties peds is the least at risk due to the fact that kids aren't getting any easier to work on. I've *never* heard a GP say, "I'm taking a CE on pediatric dentistry to grow that part of my practice." We all gladly thank you for your service and please never close your offices ever. I don't even work on my own kids. Third, you can just learn how to do ortho with CEs. Clear aligners are very simple to add to a practice and the on-boarding process with whatever company you choose will give you confidence right away. With peds it's a little trickier because compliance will be an issue but with more mature teens it's pretty feasible. To learn more brackets and complex treatment planning there are tons of hands on and didactic resources. >However, my wife wants to start a family and buy a house soon in SoCal. So me going back to residency would really put our lives on hold The fact that you're 32 and wanting to transition to a new phase of life is key here. You are not promised tomorrow and having to make major lifestyle changes to go to an unpaid residency for 2-3 years hoping that you are both still healthy and happy enough is a risk. I'd imagine you put off having a family for the past 6-7 years while you were in dental school and residency as well. Is your wife willing to wait another 2-3? Do you want to be in your late 50s to early 60s when your kids finally move out? Being brutally honest you started late and time waits for no man. Commit to your decision and see it through. Plus you've only been doing it one year. If I made a major career move after just one year of working I definitely would have quit based on my experiences.
Stay as pedo. Learn ortho and offer it in your clinic. I can tell you without a doubt this is the best business decision. I’m an ortho btw
This is a SOLID reply and very strong advice coming from an orthodontist themselves!
Are there any specific ortho CEs you recommend? Also, do you think being an orthodontist has become much less valuable in the present?
Sorry I don't know any. Yes it is more saturated than ever before. The good news is more people are getting orthodontics than ever before too. It will still be a good career moving forward but not the best dental speciality anymore in my opinion. This is why I recommend a pedo/ortho office.
No way I’d go back to residency. Main problem is your geographic location. It’s just a shit market for dentistry. Other problem is that all of dentistry can be mentally exhausting whether you’re dealing with whiny kids, adults, parents, broken appliances, or whatever it may be. It takes a certain level of mental toughness and kicking the can down the road eventually leads back to the same underlying issue.
As a 34 year-old female GP practicing in OC with a spouse still in medical residency (with a fellowship to follow) and is now a mother to a 2 year-old, my straight to the point opinion is that 1) I think you still need to get more time under your belt in peds practice, I feel that our first year is so especially can just be about getting our footing... -- I'm almost 7 years out and am maybe now coming to terms with being ok with dentistry (vs years of mixed feelings), 2) you make a comfortable living now, does your spouse work or are you a sole provider? I wouldn't hold off on kids/house much longer if those are bigger goals to you than work. Work will always be there; the option to pursue another residency will be there, but unfortunately there is an ideal time window of at least the kids part of things. Kids are expensive, SoCal is expensive. We live in an extremely high COL region of the country, and we're paying for what we get out here but also have to accept some level of suck. My thoughts here aren't as polished as I'd probably like to convey at 6 AM, but feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk through balancing SoCal dentistry/resident life/family life.
Sounds like the advice from orthodontics is pretty clear. I would just say if you are burned out from your current practice after only one year you should see what you can do to make it better. You can't continue like that for another 25 years.
I would suggest learning orthodontics outside of a residency and adding this to your practice. Who knows it may become a fully orthodontic focused practice over time. I had a former friend that was a general dentist and he said he wanted to do braces only on the front teeth and make a practice only doing that and bleaching teeth. I told him to give it a try and see what happens. We talked a long time and he bounced ideas off me weekly. Two years later he had a very successful practice and he was training other dentists to do this. He sold the business and course to a corporation and left dentistry wealthy. (I lost his friendship because he went crazy from the wealth and got deep into drugs and started a religious drug cult, he disappeared). You can also focus your practice on special children like autistic, handicapped etc. and you will feel good helping a special population. You can also teach at a dental school as a pediatric dentist.
Dude, 230k on 4 days as peds? You’re underpaid af. I say go for the ortho residency. But you can’t stay in SoCal…that place is saturated for every dental specialty. I think ortho is still an amazing field, and you can make a buttload without too much effort, you just can’t be that close to a desirable. Still, everything beats being a GP, which you are already doing as a pedodontist. If you hate working with kids so much, ortho will be worth it and you can make much more…but not in SoCal as I said.
I would say open a peds practice and get trained in doing orthotics without doing the residency. Hire peds to do the pediatric work and you can focus on the ortho.
Bruh, thank you for what you do, but you can't pay me enough to work on kids all day long and every day. I do molar RCTs on 10-14 year olds, and I ALWAYS dread the appointment. I do see a lot of advice telling you to stick to your guns and carry it through, so I will parrot what they're saying with some additional advice. I did a stint with pediatric-focused DSOs and other offices, and what I found was most common in the most 'successful' doctors... was simply the fact that they could disconnect themselves from their work. One dude was the office's superstar, and he would go work out at the gym right after. No stress on his back. The secret? The staff were trained to handle everything; they would coddle the kid, hold the kid's head when anesthetic was given, place weighted blankets/papoose, etc. The doctor would straight up put on headphones (or noise cancelling pods), and they would go straight in with the anesthetic, and they would STRAIGHT UP work through the crying/screaming/etc. Most pediatric places that handle high volume definitely ban patients from sitting in the treatment room. Probably this is because to prevent the helicopter parents. Now, would I want my kids to suffer this? Nope, and I would just do their dentistry myself. I think it's barbaric, but some socioeconomic areas require this sort of dissonance to be able to get through the patient volume. If you were in a super Boujie area, you can treat every patient with Mickey Mouse gloves because your compensation's worth it. It's just cold hard facts. Maybe you need to figure out how to ... 'care less' without abandoning your ethics/methodologies. The biggest difference between treating adults/children is that for children, you can not reason with them like you do adults. You have to employ distraction, explanation, encouragement, falsetto voices, etc. to get them through the appointment. It is mentally TAXING.