What I did this weekend:

[xiphias]

My cousin Todd graduated from dental school.

It's weird. I KNEW he was going to be Dr. Belf-Becker and join the practice, making it "Becker, Becker, Silvius, and Belf-Becker", but it didn't really hit home until I saw the photo of him in his robe, and his robe had velvet stripes on the sleeve.

That's the power of uniforms, isn't it? I was treated by him when he was in residency. He's drilled my teeth. But it's more real to me that he's a doctor because he's got a robe with velvet stripes.

Comments

[mswae.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to your cousin!

Does he actually have the robe or did he have to return it? I had to return mine ... I could have kept it but I'd have had to pay $800 ...

So dentists do their residency before they graduate? That's weird ... MDs do them after. Does that mean they have to pay tuition while they're in residency?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I have no idea if he still has the robe.

Dental school is a hell of a lot less onerous than medical school, which, frankly, is why my grandfather is a dentist (he didn't have the grades or credits to get into medical school when WWII rolled around, so he went into dental school instead, to avoid the draft. He ended up drafted for Korea, but as he was already a dentist by then, he spent his service in a comfy base in Tokyo working on teeth).

I don't know if "residency" is the right word for what dentists do, come to think of it, but I don't know what else you'd call it. There's a clinic they all work at, working on actual teeth for a year, often while still finishing up a final class or two. I think. I didn't pay too much attention to how my cousin's education actually worked.

But, yeah. Once the dental school puts the hood on a newly-minted dentist, that dentist already has experience treating patients, and is ready to go into practice for him or herself. For dentists who came to the US for school from second or third world countries, that's exactly what they'll typically do: go back home and immediately go into practice there. Dentists who come from dental families, like Todd, also have a role pre-made for them: he's going into practice with his father, grandfather, and Dr. Silvius, who's a family friend as well as partner.

I don't know what other dentists typically do. Buy a chair, a spit-sink, and a drill and hang out their own shingle is one possibility.