I want to be a dentist but I don't know if it is a good job or not. Any ideas?

Hello Jaelyn,

I am not a dentist but there is a simple way to get an answer to your question. Ask some. If you have a dentist you use that would be a good place to start. Talk to a few women dentists - I am sure they would be happy to talk to you and they will be objective in their advice.

That said, it's worthwhile to understand how dentists get paid - it's a fee for service business. Therefore, you'd get paid for fixing problems with people's teeth such as cavities. If you aren't fixing teeth you're not getting paid so there is a kind of production line dimension to that line of work. In addition, you're rooted to an office everyday. Also as a dentist you're not getting a lot of social interaction with your customers - you've got your tools in their mouth, so if you want more social interaction that may not be a good fit. Finally, not all your patients are going to be fun to work with and generally speaking, people don't look forward to visits to the dentist office so you'll have to deal with that attitude and the fear some people have.

That may not seem like a big deal - doesn't everyone get paid for fixing some sort of problem? Well, sort of. In my job working at Dell, I don't get paid on a transactional basis -each time something is sold. I get paid a salary whether or not something is sold. I still work hard but the work I do is pretty varied and involves traveling around the country and talking with people. For me that's a great fit.

I do think being a dentist could be a very fulfilling job. You are helping people and that ability to help isn't part of every job. A dentist's job can be very meaningful in a way other jobs - say an office job or a computer programming job might not be. Even in my case, there's a limit to how solving a company's technical challenges compares with something as personal as eliminating someone's pain and fixing their teeth.

Hope those considerations are helpful.

Best,

Hagen