Hey brother, checking in to give you a different scoop on dentistry.
...It's stressful as fuck. No one likes a worried / not confident dentist, so we all act* to a certain extent. Please ask your dentist next time how often he/she feels stressed. I've seen polls ranging from 50-70% of dentists feeling burned out or stressed with a range of 15-26% that had considered suicide at some point. There's a reason why we have the highest suicide rate out there (or 2nd highest).
Stresses off the top of my head are small mouths, patients that can't be seated back, running behind schedule, unhappy patients, difficult cases, threats of litigation, cosmetic dentistry, root canal files breaking, extractions failing (everyone dentist has had a handful), post-op sensitivity or damage to nerves, management of staff, managing overhead. And there's always more to learn or refine.
I also know older dentists with back pain, wrist pain, tendonitis, herniated discs. I know many who have hearing loss. And I know many with neurological diseases such as Parkinson's which is devastating.
We make money because of those stresses and because of the strain on our mental and physical health. I'm leaving work today and I'm mentally drained with a back that's fucking aching because I worked on an upper tooth of a patient who couldn't be seated back, and had a patient who could only open a hair. Oh yeah, and my staff is pressuring me to get the vaccine, and I'm going to resist the Newsom mandate so that's gonna be interesting.
Hey brother, checking in to give you the inside scoop on dentistry.
...It's stressful as fuck. No one likes a worried / not confident dentist, so we all act* to a certain extent. Please ask your dentist next time how often he/she feels stressed. I've seen polls ranging from 50-70% of dentists feeling burned out or stressed with a range of 15-26% that had considered suicide at some point. There's a reason why we have the highest suicide rate out there (or 2nd highest).
Stresses off the top of my head are small mouths, patients that can't be seated back, running behind schedule, unhappy patients, difficult cases, threats of litigation, cosmetic dentistry, root canal files breaking, extractions failing (everyone dentist has had a handful), post-op sensitivity or damage to nerves, management of staff, managing overhead. And there's always more to learn or refine.
I also know older dentists with back pain, wrist pain, tendonitis, herniated discs. I know many who have hearing loss. And I know many with neurological diseases such as Parkinson's which is devastating.
We make money because of those stresses and because of the strain on our mental and physical health. I'm leaving work today and I'm mentally drained with a back that's fucking aching because I worked on an upper tooth of a patient who couldn't be seated back, and had a patient who could only open a hair. Oh yeah, and my staff is pressuring me to get the vaccine, and I'm going to resist the Newsom mandate so that's gonna be interesting.
Hey brother, checking in to give you the inside scoop on dentistry.
...It's stressful as fuck. No one likes a worried / not confident dentist, so we all act* to a certain extent. Please ask your dentist next time how often he/she feels stressed. I've seen polls ranging from 50-70% of dentists feeling burned out or stressed with a range of 15-26% that had considered suicide at some point. There's a reason why we have the highest suicide rate out there (or 2nd highest).
Stresses off the top of my head are small mouths, patients that can't be seated back, running behind schedule, unhappy patients, difficult cases, threats of litigation, cosmetic dentistry, root canal files breaking, extractions failing (everyone dentist has had a handful), post-op sensitivity or damage to nerves, management of staff, managing overhead. And there's always more to learn or refine.
I also know older dentists with back pain, wrist pain, tendonitis, herniated discs. I know many who have hearing loss. And I know many with neurological diseases such as Parkinson's which is devastating.
We make money because of those stresses and because of the strain on our mental and physical health. I'm leaving work today and I'm mentally drained with a back that's fucking aching because I worked on an upper tooth of a patient who couldn't be seated back, and had a patient who could only open a hair.