Hey guys. I have this dilemma that most people who want to get into either dentistry and/or medicine get into when they need to choose between the two.
And I don't want to be THAT guy (or girl) who makes it sound kind of braggy and rhetorical.
Hey there!
Firstly I assure you you're not THAT guy simply for thinking about your future and looking for advice. It's a valid question and lot of people lile the prospect of both. And you've said you've already done some research first and are just looking for opinions now, which is good.
I genuinely am torn between the two courses. One moment it feels like Medicine is my dream career, and the other it feels like I was born to pursue Dentistry.
It might be worth noting that I first wanted to be a doctor, and get into medicine. But after researching more and finding out more about dentistry, it feels equally attractive to me as a profession I would engulf myself into in the future.
So you smart and intelligent and wonderful people here at BoS, do you have any opinions on the coursesand why you would like to study one over the other?
At the end of the day the decision is a personal one, and lots of factors will come into it.
I think the biggest one, however, is just the scope of what you might end up doing with either degree.
A dentist degree is good for a job as a dentist, and that's generally it. Your scope for work is basically in and around the human mouth, which in itself is a delightfully complex thing that a lot of people rightfully enjoy working with.
A med degree, on the other hand, has a lot more scope in terms of what you can do with it. There are a heap of specialties that you can explore that cover everything from general practice to hand surgery. And you can figure out which one you like as you go along.
That might sound like it's a point in med's favour, (and it well could be, esp. coming from a med-biased source such as myself), but it isn't necessarily. It just means that if you were to choose dentistry you should be happy to deal with chompy bits every day.
Or if anyone is actually studying either one of the courses, it would be really helpful to hear what the courses are like, in terms of enjoyment, course outline, hardness etcetera.
You seen to be focused on the course itself, which is obviously a very important thing, but I think the most important thing to consider is the career that comes after, given that it's a ~5-7 degree vs a career that could likely span many decades.
But since you ask:
Course outline: The gist of all the courses tends to be freely available in course handbooks for each individual uni, so that's a good place to do some reading. For either I would imagine it consists of studies of anatomy, physiology, pathology, histology etc. but for dentistry obviously more focused to the oral area. And of course there would be significant clinical component to both.
Enjoyment: If you study something you're genuinely interested in and want to do, you will enjoy it. I hugely enjoy medicine but lots of people wouldn't. Sounds like you'd probably enjoy either
Difficulty: Once again, if you enjoy it it probably won't matter too much. I wouldn't suggest that either course is easy. But for example, I would probably find dentistry harder than medicine because I'd enjoy the med content more, even if the med content was harder than the dent content (which it isn't necessarily).
I haven't done both, so I can't really comment on their relative difficulty. I feel like most people would say med is slightly harder due to the greater breadth of content but I don't know myself. If I had to guess I imagine they'd be pretty similar, and there'd probably even be a fair amount of overlap.
I really don't think it matters in the big picture though, it's whichever one you're more interested in.
To talk about more career related stuff:
- Most dentists work in private practice, whereas doctors can work in public health system, private hospitals or in a private practice etc.
- A big thing with medicine is that the degree isn't the end of it. There's a very significant postgraduate training component, generally 1 year of internship, 1 year of residency, and then around 6 years specialising as a registrar (but this varies). While you're doing all this thought you're working as a doctor and being paid, so it's not a big deal if you enjoy the journey, but if you want to hope right out of uni and into independent private practice med doesn't accommodate for that.
- Speaking
very generally, some medical specialties are have a more high stress component to them than working as a dentist. But there's a lot of variation of work environment in med.
- Again, generally, some specialties have less flexibility in work hours than dentistry. But many have equal or more flexibility
I am mainly torn between UQ med and UQ dentistry but other unis are also options regarding both courses
Also I am not really interested in which job earns more than the other. Money isn't a big factor to me
Thankyou!
Quick look at your post history show's you've applied widely and you have good results, so congrats on all that
tl;dr: I wouldn't recommend one over the other. Pick whatever you want to do/will enjoy in the future.
(On a side note; there is the option of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery:
https://www.racds.org/RACDSNEW_Content/Training/OMS_Training_Program.aspx
Which I believe requires both a medical and dental degree, because apparently some especially brilliant people are crazy enough to do both.)
