How to choose between Dentistry or Medicine?

Try to get some work experience in both fields and see which you enjoy more. After all, you will need work experience to apply to either.

Your pay comment is irrelevant since dentists typically have a higher wage.

At the end of the day, would you rather be measuring the angularity of teeth and battling through mild halitosis or spending all of your 20s studying to specialise in an aspect of medicine that enables you to 'save lives', as you put it?

Okay so I need to choose between those two courses. I'm drawn to both courses equally. For Medicine, I like the life-saving aspect, specialisation and high pay however, it can take so long to specialise and the hours aren't as flexible. With Dentistry, I'm drawn to the flexible hours and the short (shorter than medicine at least) amount of years it takes to practice dentistry however, it doesn't seem to be satisfying. At the end of the day, I want to have a good job, with a good pay, that I enjoy but, I will still have time to do any extra hobbies or activities with my family and more importantly, I also want to make a good contribution to society. Please help me decide and tell me if i'm wrong with any of my assumptions about the two courses, but they're not really assumptions as I have researched. Thank you so much

Depends on what you value.


I value life style and flexibility-I do want a higher paid career (and yes dentists earn more than doctors) and I wanted to know my hours wouldn't eat into weekends. This is because my partner works mon-fri so I wanted to ensure we have time together, if this were sacrificed, our relationship would suffer.

I want to be the boss, I want to run a business and know it's mine and be able to focus it into any direction I choose . Doctors (unless gp and opening a practice) tend to work for the nhs and thus have a "boss" and more traditional employment ie a contract etc much easier for a dentist to go solely private than a doctor


Dentistry offers enough science and research to appease my scientific thirst for knowledge with out me feeling I need to know EVERYTHING about the human body. I'd rather be an expert on people's heads and have an good knowledge of the body. Basically I like focus


I like continuity of care, seeing the same patients over and over and building a rapport.

I like the artistry and intricacy involved in dentistry, along with the aesthetic difference you make to people. Something you generally don't get with being a doctor.

And I like the simple fact that people rarely die at the dentist. A element of doctoring you can't get away from and I feel I can't deal with.


I'd recommend doing some work experience and consider every aspect of your future life before you decide.

Your pay comment is irrelevant since dentists typically have a higher wage.

At the end of the day, would you rather be measuring the angularity of teeth and battling through mild halitosis or spending all of your 20s studying to specialise in an aspect of medicine that enables you to 'save lives', as you put it?

Do you have any proof that dentists earn more than doctors? Like any facts apart from arbitrary figures? I assume you mean GPs Vs dentists as they are both comparable i.e. both relating to general practise. Otherwise you would have to compare hospital dentists (who are on pay bands) with hospital doctors.

I think u'll find salaried GPs earn the same if not more than associate dentists. By law the BMA minimum allowed for a GP is £7500 per yearly session. Each session lasts 4 hours so a full time GP who works 40 hours a week does 10 sessions. That equates to £75000 a year which is the minimum for a salaried GP. This obviously does not include all the benefits of being salaried i.e. MDU Paid by practise and paid holidays etc.

Just wanted to point out that BMA recommended contracts are not law. You get paid what you negotiate. I've been looking at jobs offering between £6000 and £8000 per session per year depending on experience.

MDU fees are not paid by all practices. The higher the session salary the less chance the practice will pay for it. A friend recently applied for a salaried job in Cardiff at £6800 per session and indemnity not included...

Also probably more realistic to think of a session as a half day. You cannot easily clock in and out after 4 hours. A morning session is more like 8am to 2pm and afternoon 2pm to 6:30pm. In reality 4 full days is considered full time and is probably nearer 50hours than 40. On this basis you could expect between £52000 and £64000 per year for full time as a salaried GP.

With regards to GP partners, general practice is really struggling at the moment and earnings are dropping. Partners are seeing profit decrease and many are now starting to close as the partners are earning less than the salaried doctors. In my immediate locality I know of one practice where all the partners resigned and another where the single handed partner has not taken amy drawings for 3 months to try to keep the business going. This is being witnessed all across the country. On this basis I would suggest dentists absolutely earn more than GPs. It is however important to recognise that these changes tend to go in cycles so in 5 years time it may be different.

Hope that helps.

Okay so I need to choose between those two courses. I'm drawn to both courses equally. For Medicine, I like the life-saving aspect, specialisation and high pay however, it can take so long to specialise and the hours aren't as flexible. With Dentistry, I'm drawn to the flexible hours and the short (shorter than medicine at least) amount of years it takes to practice dentistry however, it doesn't seem to be satisfying. At the end of the day, I want to have a good job, with a good pay, that I enjoy but, I will still have time to do any extra hobbies or activities with my family and more importantly, I also want to make a good contribution to society. Please help me decide and tell me if i'm wrong with any of my assumptions about the two courses, but they're not really assumptions as I have researched. Thank you so much

Can't believe people are getting so nitty gritty over pay....big ****ing deal.

Only an idiot will go into the career on the sole basis of pay.

Again with the arbitrary figures. The BMA says that the AVERAGE cost of hiring a salaried gp in the UK consists of a salary of around £70k along with 12.8% NA contributions and 14% contribution to pension.

Source: http://bma.org.uk/practical-support-at-work/gp-practices/gps-and-staff/focus-on-taking-on-new-partners

This is the average cost in the UK meaning the vast majority of salaried gps will get this. You can ignore the official figures if you want, but it would simply be ur delusion. BTW 'full time' is 10 contracted sessions a week. Even 8 sessions a week is considered part time incase you want to research this further. Even your friend who get £6800 per yearly session, if he works full time, would get 68k a year (and this is on the low end). Ofcourse there will be bad negotiators and low earners and high earners but but that doesnt matter as they are not in the majority just like there will be low and high earning dentists. In comparison however, dentists earn around 60k from both nhs and private income.

Source: http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB11473 (the newer 2013 data shows a lower figure)

Most newly qualified GPs however decide to locum in the beginning which can be very lucrative. This helps them increase their experience at the same time so they will get higher paying jobs if they choose to go salaried. Typical locuming with an agency pays around £70 per hour minimum and with the massive shortage of GPs and the HUGE OOH base (its all over the news) there is absolutely no shortage of demand. My friend recently qualified and has earned over 120k this year by locuming 9-5 in london. In fact there are programs which run to teach GPs how to earn 100k such as this one: http://betterdoctor.org/wp/the-ultimate-gp-locum-success-guide/
Dentists however have a slightly restricted income as there isn't as much out of hours work leading to around £350-400 for a full day (you can check this if you want)

The main thing which in my opinion is better for salaried GPs than dentists is the fact that they are salaried. This means they can never be contracted to work more than 48 hours and even if their contracted 40 hours work goes above 48 hours, they are legally allowed to challenge this. Also with a salaried job its a guaranteed income with no sweat about meeting UDA numbers etc

However i totally agree with your take on partner GPs. Income is falling for GP partners and dentist partners alike and morale is low. However, looking at previous trends it is most likely that things will change in the next 5-10 years so perspective students should take that into consideration.