My future - Page 3

Do you still need straight teeth for entry requirements?

It would be very hard to sit in classes knowing that everyone knows what a brace is for....

In the UK, the majority of dentistry applicants (parallel with medicine -the schools often operate as one) require basic sciences; a combination of Physics/Chemistry/Biology/Maths with an increasing acceptance of non-science qualifications.

Reading your post, I wondered if you were clear as to what your expectations from being a dentist would be. Is it the pleasure of pulling out pre-molars? In that case, being a vet might be more fun when you get extra large horse-sized monster teeth. If it's a lifestyle choice for financial security, social prestige etc, I guess any job could lead to that route.
If you have the aptitude for the American system of lengthy medical training & internship then go for it! Medicine that is. A lot of 18 year olds in England seem to pop into dentistry rather than medicine when they don't cut the grade. I guess that's probably because when we were all 5 years old, we played 'doctors and nurses', not 'dentists and dental hygienists'. Hmmm, societal shaping...

The most striking difference between being a dental hygienist and a qualified dentist (not necessarily one who does operations) is the route of training and accreditation by professional body.

Alternatively, you might try studying French to improve the grammar of your login ID ;P

Best of luck,

Justin

Sure, I can understand that. Although on the subject of interpersonal relating, whilst you're standing over someone with a bright 5000 Kelvin Nazi spotlight and a pair of pliers, the kind of interaction you can have is er, a little limited. The only canals I know are in Venice unfortunately.

Why not just opt for medicine? Medicine is a very broad career, and you can choose to specialise in human interactions (psychiatry); just as you can with psychology. Teaching is part and parcel of any academic institution too; the difference about a career like dentistry or medicine, is that the length of training enables tutors to get to know their students better than shorter non-vocational qualifications lasting only a few years.

I've never had a root canal and I regularly default my dentist's appointments now - that was after I had a wisdom tooth impaction. I kept telling her for months and months that my mouth wasn't big enough for an extra tooth. She'd give me a kind of look that reminded me of a drill boring right through me and of course she wouldn't listen. In the end, I had an emergency with septicaemia.

What you say about going into a career because you enjoy human interaction (or have a genuine interest in people) makes sense, although there are so many jobs which you might then enjoy. It depends on what part of your own personality/individual development you wish to recruit and enjoy using in a professional capacity. That's the difference between a guy who enjoys the routine and ritual of the everyday at work, and another who finds himself bored if not autistic behind a computer monitor wondering when he can get off work in order to start his real life.

PS - 'M'aimez-vous is just not consistent with spoken French; French colloquialism entails that an impersonal or formal second person pronoun would not be the appropriate declension for such a personal question which perforce, requires acquaintance and familiarity. For that reason, only the 'Tu aimes' version makes sense; "m'aimez-vous" is the kind of direct transliteration that American students often make

That might be the case for vous, but not all of us!

Lol - "M'aimes-tu" is more appropriate; the personal form is also used as a term of endearment for internet toddlers too. Excuse me for being so patronising
It's funny hearing you say that a lifestyle career is important. In a vocational career, I gather it used to be unheard of. Nowadays, it's all an individual can think about. Maybe it's even rarer for individuals to genuinely want a career involved in helping others, instead of helping and thinking about oneself. I guess that's down to cultural mores.
Nowadays most of us like to consider ourselves as helpful to society in some way (i.e. not sociopathic) and also materialistic. I guess I was definitely a mixture of both, and although I went into a high earning career, I choose to leave it; because I'd changed. Guess that's why it's dangerous for any 20's something person to have a career! The child-like decisions that led them to take up a job shift with maturity

You sound like you'd enjoy any career other than being an undertaker so good luck and hope your new direction takes off.

Doctors are mostly bleeding-heart types these days, since medicare and malpractice suits have tarnished the profitability of that enterprise. In the time it takes to pay off school loans, any doctor could have done much better for himself in one of many other career paths.

So doctors are hardly money grubbers. Now lawyers, them fuckers are money grubbers.

What about Sports Agents?

I'd like to think I'm helping others when I enter that career...

M'aimes-tu - Lol - I always find it amusing when I run into young idealistic photographers who believe they can get their first break by going into a war-zone to do a photodocumentary instead of working right from the community that they grew up and know best. Similarly for doctors, nurses, or any other individual, charity work is always harder when it starts in our home country, in our home town....our own back yard..



Uh? Bad experience with the wife?


Integrity is more of an indiividual issue. When it's enforced through a professional body, we call that professional competence. Professional competence doesn't really add anything to sizing up whether we think our doctor is in it for a (mistaken) care for money or for his patients. I suppose I'm not measuring progress in one's career from a materialistic or pecuniary perpsective, since I'm not sure it's reasonable for us to expect a traditional profession like medicine, to be saint-like, particularly when most of us aren't saint-like either

A doctor's role is more of a caring role; doing better for oneself doesn't sit squarely with that caring role.

I have nothing against doctors: it's a lifestyle choice. If my post seemed disapproving, it was not. I'm only disapproving of lawyers who make business for themselves often through what I'd call synthetic means.

If anyone is interested, (im stoked ) regarding my asswipe boss, he sent me a letter in reply, where he basically took the complete piss, I thought on it over the weekend and handed him a reply to this at lunchtime today. By leaving time tonight, I had been given 90% of what I requested, his attitude has completely changed and we are having a brief meeting tomorrow (something he refused too) to finalize (hopefully) the grievance and obtain the other 10%.

While he might still throw a random suprise tomorrow, it looks like I might have just ripped him a new one and we both know it

Some people just need to learn the hard way.

Next, I go into hospital Thursday and have a wee bit of time off, then its back to work in March and I will be getting a 25% payrise, though he doesn't know this yet.

Now you can be as rude as you want...

Awesome.

Lol Mark!

Is that another reason why the British economy is sinking!