Dentaltown New Grad Edition 2019 - 10

professional courtesy
column

Success Starts Here
This special edition of Dentaltown magazine is
distributed to third- and fourth-year dental students
as well as dentists who have graduated in the past three
years. It's also my opportunity to share some of the
wisdom and observations I've collected over the past
25 years in practice.

Dentistry is hard
This has been true since the beginning of the
profession, but anything worth doing is usually hard. So
if you're frustrated, stressed or having second thoughts,
be patient-the ill feelings will pass.
Realistically, those feelings may return at different
times throughout your career. At some point you'll
wonder why so many people wanted to do this! But
you also might start thinking you're glad not to be
in a cubicle or traveling every week, living out of a
suitcase. Managing this reality takes a combination
of outside interests, good mentors and an occasional
reality check.
Early in my career,
when I was faced with
stress, I'd go through the
exercise of considering my
alternatives. If I left the dental
profession, what would I do? Go
to law school? Become an architect?
Get a degree in accounting?
Connecting with other dental
professionals on Dentaltown.com has
saved more dental careers than anything
else, in my opinion. For the past 20 years,
this online community has existed with the sole
purpose that "no dentist will practice
solo again."

The debt is real
This harsh reality has reached a
potential tipping point where some
intervention will be required, or the
previously rising interest in dental
education will lead to a sharp decline
and closing schools.

How could I dare predict that schools will close?
I've seen it before: In the late 1980s, 65 dental schools
had a capacity of 6,000 students per class year, which
proved to be "too many dentists" and some schools shut
their doors. When I was in school in the early '90s,
applications were down, and the number of schools
had been reduced by about 10. Today we're back to
66 dental schools and 6,000+ students per class year.
We love to be wanted, and even more than that, we
love to live in the same places as other people. The problem
is not too many dentists-it's an uneven distribution of
them. As you begin on your career path, consider the
saturation of dentists in your area. Living in a smaller
town or in the country has become attractive for many
people who are tired of crowded cities. People in those
smaller areas need a dentist like you.

Success will come
Malcolm Gladwell is famous for the concept of
putting in 10,000 hours before you can be a success at
something. If you work full time when you graduate,
that's approximately five to six years before you've
accumulated enough experience to be a "success."
The pursuit of knowledge beyond the practice of
dentistry counts extra, in my opinion, so if you're the
type who wants a faster path, put in some additional
hours taking CE courses. I'm also a strong believer in
the power of a hospital GPR or school-based AEGD.
Many graduates forgo these opportunities because they
feel the need to start paying down debt.
I think this can be a great opportunity to get that
early experience. Some may turn this into a career with
ownership stakes, and others may find a home in a small
practice or strike out on their own.
I hope you'll take advantage of all the resources that
Dentaltown has to offer. You can have conversations with
thousands of dental professionals 24/7/365, take CE
courses from the comfort of your home, browse hundreds
of clinical or practice management articles, and more.
If you have a need for advice, feel free to leave
a comment or question under this article online at
dentaltown.com/magazine. I'm on Twitter @ddsTom. ■

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

10

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Dentaltown New Grad Edition 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown New Grad Edition 2019
