-Chelsey
My husband is a dentist.
He’s been out of school now for six years and we recently bought our own
practice. Due to various complications that
naturally come with dental transitions within four months I found myself
working the front desk full time in his office.
The other day while presenting a treatment plan to a patient, the
patient had the audacity to tell me that “if dentists just didn’t charge so
much a lot more people would get the dental work done.” I calmly kept quiet as he proceeded to tell
me how ridiculous a dentists fees were. However, he got me so worked up that it
led me to write this. This, which only
skims the surface of the adversity we’ve faced for the past 12 years, is a
brief history of my husband’s and my travels since deciding to become a dentist.
Prior to becoming a dentist, my husband and I lived in a
great town, had wonderful friends and good professions. My husband was a firefighter/paramedic and I
taught full time at the local high school.
For several different reasons, all of them too complicated to go into or
now forgotten 10 years later, my husband decided to leave the safety net the
fire department provided us and take his chance going back to school to become
a dental professional. I know, the
career change seems quite a jump, but for my husband who enjoyed the medical
aspect of paramedicine and loved constructing beautiful things with his
building skills it seemed a perfect fit and we were enthusiastic about our
choice. Looking back, we knew little of
the sacrifices and challenges we would make to be able to get into this
profession.
To prepare for the time we would leave our town to attend
dental school the first thing my husband and I did was put our first (and so
far our only) home that we owned up for sale.
This home was a home that we had a contractor build for us but it was a
contractor who let us do whatever work that we wanted to. This appealed to us because Brad had been in construction and knew how to do much of the building. My husband, on his days off from the fire
department, framed the house, hung the dry wall, painted the walls, laid the
tile, roofed the house and landscaped the property and many were the days I
would help him, pregnant with our first child.
We chose all the colors of the paint, the carpet, the tile and the
cabinets of the kitchen. My husband even
put in a bidet, a bathroom accessory that he came to love when he served a
mission for our church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We loved this home. It was our own dream in a place we loved to
live. When we sold it we began what I call
our rental phase, a phase that would last for the next 12 years.
Another thing we did to prepare was have me return to
teaching so we could save up as much money as we could for the four years of
additional schooling he would attend. At
this time, I was pregnant with my 2nd child, McKenzie and soon after
her birth, I found myself leaving my 2 year old and newborn baby to be watched
by someone else while I brought in the income and my husband attended school to
complete his bachelors. We scrimped and
saved every penny we could and by the time we left for school we had $20k in
savings.
Because of my husband’s dedication and hard work ethic he
was accepted into many different schools.
Of the 10 we applied to, 8 offered him a letter of acceptance. In the fall of 2004, we left to attend our
university of choice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas with dreams of returning
to our hometown in Idaho just a short 4 years later.
None of the sacrifices we made in Vegas were a surprise to
us. We knew tuition would cost us
$55,000/year and that if we could get residency that would lower it to a mere
$35,000/year. We knew there were no
scholarships opportunities and that the only way to pay for the tuition would
be to apply for student loans. We
thought we could make our $20k of savings last for a few years, but a year into
school, we saw the savings quickly evaporate.
We applied for more school loans and received Medicaid and food stamps
to help supplement our living expenses during this time. I would have worked as a teacher, but when I
looked at the cost of child care for my children (I had 3 at this time) vs. the
income I would make it really did not make sense to teach. I tended children instead from my home. Feel free to criticize me if you will. A social worker did once. Why couldn’t Brad work? Well, that would have to be a question you
need to ask a dental/medical student.
When you are accepted into these types of schools, they require your
full dedication and rare are the opportunities for students to both study and
work. We did have a friend who was a
pharmacist at night and was able to study while working until midnight but he
was the rare exception. I shopped at
Good will and was an avid couponer. We
never owned a cell phone, didn’t have cable tv or internet and our children were
not able to participate in any sports. At
Christmastime we would spend $10 on each child and Brad and I would go
without. I visited my family once during
this time, mostly because we did not have the money to fly from Vegas to
Washington and our cars were not reliable enough to trust the 24 hour drive
to. I’m not saying this to say I was
deprived in any way. I’ve never felt
deprived. My intent is to help you see I
was as frugal as I could be. By the time
we graduated we had only $265,000 of debt from our schooling. Some of our friends had upwards of $400,000
and for those new students coming out currently the debt is more. By this time we were 33 and had no savings or
retirement and 5 children and because of the high concentration of dentists in
Idaho found ourselves searching for employment in ANY state out west.
We bounced around for five years working as an associate
dentist for private practices. The five
years is not something I really want to elaborate on because then you’ll think
this really is a sob story and I have
no interest in sounding like a whiner.
Besides, some of the moving came from our own choices. At the end of the five years, we still had
our full debt, no retirement and had moved 6 times. Finally an opportunity presented itself to
purchase our own dental practice for $425k.
Now mind you, this $425k was not a building. This $425k was mostly goodwill ($350k) and
the rest was some nice chairs, good computers, xray sensors, an intraoral camera
and some old junky equipment.
Our monthly payment on the $425k is $5000/mo. Our monthly payment on the school debt is
$2000/mo. Our rent is $4052/mo. Our staff expenses are upwards of $10,000 and
the rest of the practice expenses (office supplies, gas, electricity, taxes,
licenses, liability insurance, dental supplies) are around $13,000/mo. So this place has to clear $34,000/mo. before
Brad and I bring any home.
So with all of this in mind, a few of the sacrifices and the
costs involved, can you understand why dental procedures cost so much?
After 6 years of being graduated we were finally able to put
some money into retirement this year.
After 6 years of being graduated we are finally able to purchase a home.
After 6 years of being graduated my children will finally attend one
school. Are there days I’m afraid we won’t
make it? Yes. Are there days that I’m scared the phone won’t
ring anymore and patients will stop coming in?
Yes. Do I worry that Brad’s neck
will give out, or his back, and he won’t be able to do dentistry anymore? Yes, especially as I hear about the dentist
who just had neck surgery down the street.
And yes, she’s a dentist that is a preferred provider for all insurances…see
what happens when you have to take lower fees and work that hard?
And yet, dentistry is a good career. Dentistry is a rewarding career where we
truly are able to help others. It’s a
career, that when Brad doesn’t have to worry about the finances, he truly
loves. I hope dentistry is a career that
we can look back on and say, “You know, it was hard at first but it was worth
it in the end.” But please, while you’re
in my dental office don’t complain about the cost of a procedure or I may just
complain about the cost of the last 12 years for my family and I.
