Dentistry is one of the most rewarding career choices. Through their education, diagnosis and treatment activities, dentists provide an essential health service to the public. Studies continue to show a strong link between oral health and overall health.
Before you apply to dental school, you should consider whether this career choice is right for you, what the education and training requirements are, and what opportunities a dental degree can offer you beyond practice. general.
What you may not know is that dentistry is both an art and a scientific profession.
Ask yourself the following questions:
Would you like to pursue a career that offers challenge and variety?
Would you like to work on your own?
Would you like to help people maintain or improve their oral health?
Do you have good manual dexterity and spatial judgment?
Do you have a strong memory and a strong interest and aptitude for science?
The work of the dentist has a much wider scope today than before. Dentists are oral health specialists. They have the skills, training and knowledge to know how the health of your teeth, gums and mouth affects your overall health.
Today’s dentists do more than drill and fill their patients’ teeth; they perform a wide range of procedures and functions. Although some dentists are specializing or gaining expertise in particular areas, the number and range of services they provide has steadily increased.
The typical dentist performs the following tasks:
Prevention/Public Education: Dentists teach their patients, as well as the general public, how to prevent oral health problems. Providers of primary care, they also provide nutritional advice, as well as information and advice aimed at acquiring and maintaining good oral health.
Screening and management of oral diseases: Studies show that there may be a link between oral diseases and other health problems, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke, as well as premature births and low birth weight. Among healthcare professionals, dentists are often the first to detect a wide range of systemic diseases such as hypertension and cancer.
Aesthetic improvement: Dentists can help improve the patient’s appearance as well as their health by using new techniques in cosmetic dentistry.
Restoration: Dentists repair damage to teeth, gums, and oral tissues from accidents or diseases such as tooth decay and periodontitis (gum disease).
Correction: Dentists correct oral health problems caused by malaligned teeth or jaws, crowding of teeth, or too much space between teeth using braces, splints, and other devices and treatments.
Reconstruction: Dentists make products to compensate for the loss of teeth and oral tissue, including fixed replacements and dentures.
Surgery: Dentists perform more oral surgeries than extractions. They also perform surgeries to correct facial and dental malformations of accidental or congenital origin.
Dentists treat people of all ages and personalities, and have close relationships with them. As each patient has unique issues and concerns, the dentist develops and carries out unique treatment plans for each. The dentist’s typical day is therefore full of varied and interesting tasks.
Ceativity: Expanding Your Mind
The dental profession requires marked artistic skills . Dentistry is largely a fine art, requiring precision manual work. Whether it’s whitening a tooth or correcting a full jaw, dentists must have aesthetic sense and technical skill to achieve the best possible results.
Dentists use their intelligence and experience to determine what is best for all of their patients. They must constantly make creative decisions in order to develop treatment plans for their patients and carry them out. To do this, they must consider a number of complex factors.
Prestige: Finding and opening new doors
Because dentists provide essential health services, they hold a highly respected position in the community. Patients’ oral health, as well as much of their overall well-being, is in the hands of dentists.
As competent professionals who care about a job well done, dentists earn the respect and recognition of their patients and fellow citizens. They have the opportunity to work as community leaders, educators, doctors and government officials
Dentistry, perhaps more than any other medical discipline, offers professional flexibility. Most dentists are self-sufficient and enjoy the flexibility that comes with that self-sufficiency, establishing solo or group private practices. Dentists in private practice can work full-time or part-time, and are free to set their own working hours. They can thus easily organize their personal and professional life according to their individual needs and desires.
In addition to operating solo or group practices, dentistry offers the opportunity to work in a variety of other locations: municipal agencies and federal and provincial government agencies, such as public health departments, community non-profit organizations and educational organizations, research programs sponsored by universities, foundations and corporations, and programs of the armed forces.
Safety: A Growing Need for Dental Care
Income is an important factor to consider when choosing a career. Dentists usually earn a more than adequate income. Dentistry can actually provide very comfortable financial security.
Dentistry is an evolving profession. The need for professional dental services will continue for years to come, even as changing patterns of oral disease will alter the nature of dental practice. Thanks to fluoride and improved dental techniques, there is a reduction in dental caries, especially in children and adolescents. However, periodontal disease is still a serious threat, affecting 3 out of 4 adults.
Tomorrow’s dentists will meet people’s oral health needs with state-of-the-art technology, including vaccines against tooth decay, new methods to combat anxiety, and advanced materials and treatments. used to improve the appearance.