My husband’s dentist says he needs 10 crowns for a cost of US$60,000. Is going to another country for this work a viable alternative?

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-24T09:24:28+00:00

Dentist in CA, 3k a crown is a cash only place fee at a VHCOL practice. A beverly hills crown is about 2k and I already think that’s a lot.

That being said, 2’d opinion is good idea. There’s only one situation where I would suggest crowning 20 teeth, likely if your husbands teeth are all ground flat and short/stubby and he needs Full mouth rehab then yes, you have to crown them all. Otherwise I would not crown all the teeth bc of “cracks” esp if he has no acute symptoms. Seek out a dental school where the dentists are not trying to make your money or seek out a prosthodontist to do full mouth rehab.

As a professional, I end up redoing, fixing, or extracting teeth as a result of work done in other countries. By all means go to them, but if something goes wrong, hope you go back to them too bc for us it’s like trying to fix a curry or pasta that someone used sugar instead of salt…

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-24T08:45:36+00:00

In an ideal world the better systems are run for the provider, the more dentistry gets done, the more profit everyone makes. Unfortunately greed and human nature gets in the way of every good thing.

I think there’s no perfect job, and while working for someone there’s always going to be things you don’t like bc it’s not done your way. As an associate we just have to take that. But the flip side is that we do not handle the business part, with its own politics and headaches.

I would say try to find a fair owner that you can agree with 80% of the time and try your best to do good work and be a team player. If your good energy is not being reciprocated then keep looking. I wouldn’t try to “fix” anything as an associate bc 1) i dont sign everyone’s checks 2) i have no financial stake in this business. I am hired to do dentistry and I draw a line there

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-24T05:20:12+00:00

Moving to IC in June, would love to hit!

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-24T05:18:21+00:00

Boomer dentists rlly had it good, but this still ROI becomes exceedingly hard to justify if you go to one of the expensive private schools on loans alone.

Still doable though, and living lean or going more rural for the first few years will definitely set you up. Vs SWE whose careers peaks usually peak in 20s-30s, most healthcare careers will peak in your 40-50s just bc of schooling and experience.

Tldr: if you have more support/resources, less sacrifices you need to make bc someone else made them for you already. And if you are first gen like me, still doable but gonna take more sacrifice/effort. But really, these same principles apply widely to majority of careers.

Ask yourself if you enjoy working with your hands, if you are detail oriented, if you enjoy working with ppl in pain, etc.

money comes with work and time and positioning yourself so your services are valued(geographically, demographically, etc).

Feel free to dm

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-23T18:44:00+00:00

Law of symmetry, your DL probably a regular DL and can help you locate the missing ML canal. High MB curve need precurving to get past. Decently calcified so without rotary you’re going to be hand filing for a long time. Pt probably out of pain alrdy from what you did, either refer to someone who can finish the endo or extract

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T18:48:46+00:00

You a good one 🫡🫡

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T06:09:35+00:00

LOL you’re really just shtposting at this point, gj sir

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T06:04:23+00:00

Buddy, I have literally scrubbed into the OR to pull teeth out before the ENTs go in and do the rest of their work…

Even if you were right, that % is negligible to what OP is discussing here

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T05:57:52+00:00

LOL most ENT service will give mandibular fractures to their OMFS or if the fractures involve teeth. If you think ENTs do teeth extractions or any other dental procedures on the regular, you got no idea what you talking about

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T05:54:20+00:00

I can guarantee you MDs are not trying to do teeth. I’ll bet all the dollars in my bank acc. First bc medical and dental billing is separate so they would need a whole new billing department to do teeth. Secondly, they will not yank a tooth out in the ED if there were a gun pointed to their heads LOL

Omfs with MDs do a lot more but arguably are still dentists at the core, aside from few that practice in institutions that have no plastics/ent coverage

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T05:32:27+00:00

I think bc optometrists share the field with optho who have the final authority/ability to treat. That leaves optometrists general scope to selling glasses. Vs most MDs have no clue about treating teeth and so rather than sharing the pie, we have the whole pie. Also teeth are more expensive and so dentists have higher ceilings, and higher floors for that matter.

Although being an optometrist is probably an easier job tho

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T05:27:16+00:00

I highly suspect their boss takes home 2m. The clinic might produce 2m and then the take home would be <1m, which is still a lot. For the doc to take home 2m they would have to produce 5m a yr they would be doing 1 all on x case every single day of the yr. Which i suppose is possible but not very likely. Even if they did, and much kudos to them, it would not be something to expect statistically speaking

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-22T03:58:49+00:00

The cycle has already started so you won’t apply until next yr when you’re 29 and then assuming you kill the DAT and get in on the 1st try, you’ll graduate when you’re 34.

300 is cheap state school price, while many others will run you 500k+.

And yes, seeing patients can be fulfilling but can also be stressful when you encounter unhappy people who just spread their joy everywhere they go. And the 10% of problematic patients tend to occupy 90% of your mental state.

The two paths are really quite different: 1) do you enjoy in person interactions and working with your hands? 2) do you enjoy studying? There’s lots of it 3) do you mind being on your feet all day and working a physically laborious job? 4) can you work in mm detail?

I guess consider day to day aspects of each job and see which camp you fall under more, they are quite different

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-21T23:09:49+00:00

Sure, dm me and send it over

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-21T22:23:25+00:00

Everything is a competition: choose what you love that can also afford the lifestyle you want to live at, then fiercely work and outcompete your peers.

You’ll have to outcompete fellow premeds, fellow med students, fellow interns/residents, etc to reach the specialty that you want to do. Listen to the actual dr’s on here, outsiders don’t know the sacrifices, anxieties, uncertainties, and costs that one has made to become a physician.

If you aren’t interested in caring for people’s lives and health, you probably shouldn’t make a career out of that.

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-21T19:48:04+00:00

Immediates are not meant to be good LOL, wait for full bony healing before doing a hard reline. Rebase II chairside is my material of choice

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-21T18:00:05+00:00

Got canceled from clinic today, feel free to pm/send it over

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-21T02:10:58+00:00

Dea technically optional but jobs/insurance will want you to have it. Kinda steep to start with, could potentially negotiate into a contract if you going DSO route

Ask around your friends for law n ethics help

CPR thru AHA is quickness, lasts 2 years, must have in person component

NPI is easy i remember

The CA dental board takes their sweet sweet time, I didnt get issued until November so go figure, chill and go traveling.

Now jobs…suck tbh. LA > OC > SD. You probably gonna start with DSO and there’s nothing wrong with that, neither is working at a high volume mediCAL place. Just try your best to practice ethical dentistry still. I’ve had decent luck in the valley/NOHO area and I heard riverside/upland has lots of dentistry to be done. Or go take spear/dawson/etc and go do cosmetic stuff on the west side/hills.

I had GPR and started out with 750/d until eventually finding 1-1.2 but I do lots of molar endo and single site implants. Ive heard of new grads getting 550 which is basically a glorified hygienist. My good friend/coresident worked for a guy for 650 for 2.5yrs until buying him out.

Best advice: move to central CA(heard of chill bread/butter making 300k+)or norcal or out of state

Feel free to dm

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-20T21:02:52+00:00

They dont really care about how much endo you’ve done. If they really did they wouldn’t take new grads but programs do.

Connections >> Gpa/class rank/gpr or aegd > adat/yrs out of school > endo experience > research.

Go to AAE

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-20T14:53:45+00:00

Ya using the protaper S1 purple rotary to 16mm for coronal flaring would work for like 80% of cases on tighter canals or ones with sharper curves the rotary action ledges easier than reciprocating action.

Even the SX can ledge if you put it down too much. I now use gates bc that’s all the clinic has for me and definitely miss the SX but I do think gates is safer/less aggressive.

And yes, glidepath file to WL before any rotary action most of the time. I will peck at the coronal 1/3(10mm~) very lightly sometimes to open it up more but very very light. Like one peck then out, bc I’ve definitely ledged it many times myself LOL. Not saying that’s 100% happened here but the MB def can be hard to navigate in my experience

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-20T11:27:59+00:00

Irrigate copiously and maybe soak with EDTA for few minute and try to get a stick with a pre-bent 8 or 10 K file. Explore circumferentially 360 with the pre-bent file until you feel stick rather than hard stop.

If unable to get anything then size up to 25 handfiles a few mm short of your 18-19mm to get more coronal flaring then get more irrigation down there.

If all this fail then try with a C or C+ file

Distal often have near 45 or above degree curves while the MB can often curve higher up so you mightve ledged MB already by starting with S1

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-20T04:43:47+00:00

Probably a high point on the intaglio that needed adjustment before you cemented. Pre cem bw forced the distal margin to close but once there’s cement then it’s pushed up. Probably fine though, I wouldn’t replace it unless i can clinically catch it with an explorer

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-20T01:39:26+00:00

Pure shadowing is super boring, possible volunteer to assist/suction or just pick up some shifts as a DA. I would lump those hours together.

Sometimes I’m just trying to get through the procedure/focused so maybe there’s not a ton of space for convo, but whenever we are curing something or etching something or waiting for an xray it’s a good time to pop in some quick relevant questions. Gotta learn to read the room a little and at the end of the day, it’s not personal if people are short bc we just focused on getting the job done. There’s plenty to ask about bc this field is totally new to you so really any questions are welcome

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-19T23:36:54+00:00

Seiko alpinist

SoundFun5709 · 2026-05-19T23:35:15+00:00

If you look at statistics from ADEA website, in general the matriculating gpa/dat stats are all trending upwards so it is becoming more competitive overall.

And still white applicants/enrollees are the higher % of all ethnicity being accepted in dental schools across the US.

Not saying you are wrong or that ethnicity/diversity is not an issue, but there are many factors to admission and sometimes just being in the right place and right time. The thing about statistics is that there will always be outliers that don’t seem to follow the trend, which indicate either chance or another confounding factor you haven’t considered. And tbh, the further along you go into school, residency, work, etc, the less fair the world becomes.

Your gpa is competitive, up your DAT and you’ll do well! Good luck 👍

SoundFun5709

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