Why do dentists earn more than Doctors?

(I'm quite temped to go a leading medical school, get kicked out for cheating, go to a less prestigious medical school, specialise in infectious disease, meet a fit brunette who'll become the dean of medicine at the hospital I shall later work at, have my right leg anally raped my an aneurysm, and then set up a Diagnostics department at said hospital where I am the curmudgeoning genius/anti-hero). Sorted.

I'll give you a more neutral reason why dentists earn more.

1) When we graduate we require one more year of training to be fully qualified and self sufficient. Medicine is different. A medicine graduate can't practice unsupervised (foundation/core years etc)

2) Dentists are responsible for decontamination of their instruments. This includes the design, purchase, maintenance and operation of their local decontamination unit. Doctors have no responsibility for this (normally everything is single use OR carted away to a central sterilization department)

3) Dentists have a managerial role in that they employ staff from their wage. A dental nurses wage is paid for by the dentist employing her, even as a partner in a practice.

4) Danger money - operating a drill rotating at 500000 rpm for the majority of your day is probably going to be more dangerous than a lot of medical undertakings in your average day. All dental procedures carry a lot of risk for patient and dentist. If you think about it, all dentistry procedures are classed as at least 'semi-critical' in terms of risk of cross infection, so a dentist with a BBV would be out of work, but a doctor could still practice. This reflects both the nature of the work, how high the risk of cross infection is (and thus loss of livelihood). Doctors by nature think more, and dentists 'do' more. As in, get their hands really dirty all day. It's not every day that a general doctor (if we're also talking about general dental practitioners) will have a flap raised, taking a bur to a bone.

5) It's different in England now (not in Scotland) but the NHS pay scheme for a dentist here dictates that if you do a filling you get x amount. It's not really salaried as such. It depends on how much work you do. NHS dentists normally see around 30-35 patients a day. Not easy.

6) Plus, the NHS really need us! Why else would they have paid me £16k as an undergrad to agree to do NHS work for 5 years You can charge £1k for a bridge private if you're good enough. You set your fees. Most dentists don't do private, that's a lot of ****. Most dentists do NHS then do private where the NHS restricts them. i.e. a white filling on a back tooth is not allowed.

This is NOT a doctors vs dentists thing. The jobs could not be more different. And that's why they're paid differently, because they aren't different. Any budding young doctors should realise that you need dentists to sign off that patients are ok to go ahead with treatments such as chemo or bisphosphonates. And any young dentists should realise they need doctors to check INRs, liver function etc to go ahead with extractions and many other areas. You're both healthcare professionals, and you both need each other, no one 'works harder' than the other.

Not to be pedantic but I think it was an muscular infarction rather than an aneurysm that gave House his limp

LOL

I did my work exp at a Barts' Max Fax department and met a couple of SHOs, one of which had done a medical degree and was going to do a dental one and then MaxFax. One said "there are more and more people doing medicine and then dentistry" so hopefully ...

I'm also going to fight crime in my spare time

Plus by the time I've finished my medical degree I'll most likely have changed my mind a gazillion times.

(I'm quite temped to go a leading medical school, get kicked out for cheating, go to a less prestigious medical school, specialise in infectious disease, meet a fit brunette who'll become the dean of medicine at the hospital I shall later work at, have my right leg anally raped my an aneurysm, and then set up a Diagnostics department at said hospital where I am the curmudgeoning genius/anti-hero). Sorted.

isn't that the dream of all medics? especially the fit brunette part

Infactions (muscle death as far as I'm aware) have to be caused by something, in this case its an aneurysm (I'm guessing you know what they are).

Oh you negged me

I do (I think ). Could have been a blood clot.

Wikipedia thinks otherwise ...

The House website thinks you're both right. But the clot is crucial - an aneurysm on its own can't cause a muscle infarction (and any tissue can infarct, not just muscle) - it has to either burst, dissect, clot or embolise. Otherwise it just...sits there

I thought if it gets big enough to partially block a blood vessel then the irregular shape of the walls would cause particles to build up (sorta like a meandering river), eventually blocking the BV, right?

And to be fair, I never said he was wrong - I only confirmed he was right.

Wikipedia thinks otherwise ...

You sure?!?!

If I have, I'm really sorry. I was half asleep as I was finishing off my application. I'll pos rep you in a month

Firstly, the aneurysm IS the blood vessel. Just...swollen outwards. In very simplistic terms.

Yes, if it gets big enough then clot can form from the edges inwards, but then you have clot - it's not just the aneurysm! And it's rare it would grow so much to block off the whole vessel - usually problems occur when bits of clot break off (embolise) and block off vessels further down.

My step dad had a cereberal anerysm. He never knew about it untill it ruptured.

Am I right in assuming aneurysms are rarely diagnosed before something bad happens to them? Like a clot/hemorrhage?

So his leg was caused by a clot which was indirectly caused by an aneurysm.

Firstly, the aneurysm IS the blood vessel. Just...swollen outwards. In very simplistic terms.

Yes, if it gets big enough then clot can form from the edges inwards, but then you have clot - it's not just the aneurysm! And it's rare it would grow so much to block off the whole vessel - usually problems occur when bits of clot break off (embolise) and block off vessels further down.

I meant for one blood vessel to bulge into another.

Never heard of that happening, tbh.

Given where aneurysms are likely to occur, is that ever likely to happen?

Touché