We are very pleased to present you with the
third annual New Grad Edition of Dentaltown
Magazine, created especially for dental students
and recent graduates. I sincerely congratulate
you on entering the sacred and sovereign profession
of dentistry - one of the most challenging
yet highly rewarding careers on the planet! You
have chosen to work in the best profession in the
world, but as you might be aware, it is not going
to be easy. You will experience some exhilarating
highs in your dental career, but you will also
endure some difficult times as well. Fortunately
you don't have to go it alone. I started
Dentaltown.com in 1999 as a way to connect
the dental profession in ways my generation
only dreamed of. I implore you to register on
Dentaltown.com to join the thousands of dentists
and dental professionals who go online
every day to discuss their challenges, tips, questions
and successes. If there is only one thing I
could recommend to you as you start out, it
would be to join our thriving community on
Dentaltown.com. However, in my 25 years as a
practicing dentist, here are a couple more things
I wish to impart to you - the future of dentistry
- to help make your road a little less bumpy.
Finding a Mentor
I'm often contacted by dental school
students and recent graduates looking for
guidance as to what they ought to do
with their career starting out. You're
faced with many different choices at
this time in your life - but the question
I hear the most is, "Where should I
work?" I get the same e-mail every time
around graduation: "Hi Dr. Farran, I
have a dilemma and I'm wondering
if you could help me. I'm
going back to my hometown
to practice dentistry
and there are
two dentists offering
me a job, and I'm not sure which one I
should take. One would pay me 25 percent of
production including the lab bill, and the other
one would pay me 35 percent of production but
I would have to pay my lab bill. Which one
should I take?"
The answer is obvious, right? Wrong.
I don't care about the income you make in
your first year. I really don't care how you're
going to get paid. What I do care about is your
40-to-50-year career in dentistry. You need to
stop thinking about what you're going to get
paid right out of the gate and worry more about
things like what you're going to learn from the
hiring dentist, how the hiring dentist will make
you feel and whether or not he or she will be a
quality mentor.
Don't look at how much in production
you're going to make or what portion of the lab
bill you're going to be responsible for. Find out
how many times the dentist has been married.
Find out what staff turnover is; do staff members
leave after two years or does the dentist
have a staff of long-timers? What percentage of
the dentist's patients are not scheduling recalls?
How many new patients are coming through
the door? How many new patients does the
practice need each month to keep its doors
open? What's the dentist's reputation around
town? How stable is this place?
It is important that you connect yourself
to the dentist who is going to be the better mentor.
You're worried about what you're getting paid
in the immediacy when you really need to look at
the big picture and figure out which dentist is
going to boost your career into the stratosphere.
Student Loan Debt
Earlier this year, a study by the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York indicated the United
States currently faces more debt in student loans
than in credit card and auto loan debt, and is
only second to mortgage loan debt. Many dental students today are graduating with a frightening
$300,000 or more in student loan debt.
That's a huge dollar amount to bite off in order
to start working in dentistry! It is daunting, yes,
but not insurmountable.
I've been practicing dentistry longer than
many of the readers of this special New Grad
Edition have been alive. Because I've been
around the block a few times, I've noticed a few
things that might help you get a leg up on
tackling your student debt. For years I've
seen dentists graduate from dental school
with massive debt, but they go out and buy
a nice condo, a gorgeous car and they go
out to eat five nights a week. They take up
this gargantuan personal debt on top of
their student debt because they think this is
the way dentists are supposed to live. They
think they've earned it. They complain all
the time about their $300,000 in student loans,
but when you look at their monthly statements
of cash flow, the monthly personal debt payments
they've now racked up is easily two to five
times their monthly student loan payment.
Keeping up with the Joneses digs a much deeper
hole, which is so much harder to get out of.
On the flipside, I've noticed the other
extreme: Some dentists will graduate from dental
school, rent 1,000 square feet in a city in
which they practice dentistry...and live there! I'm serious - they actually live at their dental
practice. They have a much different work ethic.
They don't throw money at a mortgage because
they live at their practice. They don't need a car
because they work so hard, they don't need to go
anywhere. They don't even post hours of operation
on their door because they're at the practice
all the time! It might be a little slow at their practice
from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through
Thursday, but people will call them and come in
late at night with a major emergency. Compare
that to the dentists who say they're "patient centered,"
who are only open during banker's hours
four days a week, and then take lunch at the
same time all their patients take lunch. These
dentists who have a strong work ethic, who feel
no sense of entitlement whatsoever not only
have their student loan debts paid off in five
years, but they've purchased a dental practice
with new build outs. Everything in the practice
is paid off, too! It's only when they have
$300,000 in cash do they even consider going
out and purchasing a house for their new family.
Now, I'm not saying in order to pay off your
student loans you must buy a practice and live in
it - this is just one solution some people are comfortable with. The best way to pay off your
debt is work like no dentist has ever worked
before. You can find a happy medium. Maybe
you keep your practice open during hours when
your patients aren't working. Maybe you stay
open on Saturdays. Maybe you simply take your
lunch an hour later than your patients do. The
bottom line is if you find yourself drowning in
student debt, you need to make sure you're curbing
your personal spending and working hard
(and smart) to chip away at it. If you work at it
hard enough, you will tackle that student debt
quicker and be better off in the long run.
You are going to encounter a multitude
of difficult situations in which you will have to
make tough decisions throughout your dental
career. You're going to make mistakes as well.
Learning by making your own mistakes can take
its toll; a much safer way is to learn from other
practitioners' mistakes that you read about
online and in our magazine. Dentaltown.com
and Dentaltown Magazine exist to help you
through your dental career by arming you with
the best advice and information so you can make
the best, informed decisions for your career, your
practice and your patients. I wish you nothing
but the best of luck in your career and I can't wait
to see you on Dentaltown.com.
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