Confession #1: my dentaltown profile says I'm a retired dentist, but that's not really true.
The truth is, I quit dentistry at 36 years old. That's right. I'm a quitter... and proud of it!
After 9 years in "dentist recovery," it's nice to be able to feel proud of my choices. It took a while to get here. Despite practicing dentistry for 10 years before hanging up the handpiece, coming to terms with being a "quitter," was no easy task. Logically, I'd say 10 years is long enough to really know whether you like something or not. But with dentistry it's different.
Most of us chose dentistry because it would be our forever career. When you dedicate so much time, money, and your identity to something like this, walking away doesn't feel like an option. As a result, we stay stuck and often times chronically depressed or anxious for years or even decades.
Frankly, I believe we can change this. In order to do that, the dialogue within the dental community needs to change.
What inspired me to start sharing a blog here is the occasional message board post in which the original poster (OP) confesses their dissatisfaction with dentistry and seeks help from colleagues who understand. Many of the responses are supportive. We often see other dentists validating the OP's feelings and experiences, sharing ideas, and simply connecting.
However, some of the responses reflect a lack of understanding of what a struggling dentist is really going through. They might make general statements about "young dentists today," work ethics, or even suggest the OP suck it up because that's what they did, and they love dentistry. Well, that's great. I want other dentists to love dentistry. I wish I did, but unfortunately I don't. In fact, conceptually, I love everything about it, but in practice it creates a lot of inner turmoil for me. Anyway, back to these responses. The bottom line is they are not helpful... at all. They just come off as self-serving and often times show a lack of empathy.
I'm here to set the record straight for all dentists questioning this career path.
I didn't quit dentistry because I was lazy, or because I was unsuccessful, or because I didn't try hard enough. I quit dentistry because the work itself created so much discord and unhappiness in my life, that I couldn't go on living that way any longer. I knew that it was either me or my career that needed to go, and me going was never an option. Unfortunately, not everyone in our field has that same outcome.
If you question how this career affects your mental health and your life, the same goes for you. You are not lazy or a failure. Sure, there may be things you can do to better cope with the stresses of dentistry. Many dentists have gone down that path, and it works. However, something else might be going on. You may simply be in the wrong career. And that's okay.
So, stay tuned, I hope you'll follow along-- actually, I'm not even sure if you can follow blogs on dentaltown (although I suspect you can.) I'll share my journey into and out of dentistry... one confession at a time.