Don't Get: Wanting to be a Dentist

Yes, I get why we need to have dentists. No, I don't get why anyone in their right mind would want to be a dentist! Why would you ever want to fish around in someone else's mouth scraping away tartar and using words like absess, bicuspid, plaque, gingivitis, and molar? OK, "molar" isn't so bad, but the only dental-related word that even has the slightest positive connotation to it is "oral"!

So, let's review the possible reasons why you would want to be a dentist:

Money. This is the first thing that came to my mind. All doctors are rich, right? And dentists are a kind of doctor, right? Well, if you think that an annual salary of $116k makes you rich, then you just go right ahead and deal with bleeding gums all the way to the bank, my friend. (I got that number from salary.com - a painfully simple name for a website that deals with salaries.) Suppose you see 10 orally-hygeine-challenged people a day. Five days a week. Forty-eight weeks a year (because just like "real" doctors, it seems like dentists are always on vacation). That would be 2400 nasty mouths that you have to look into each year! Good God, that's only $48 per pie-hole! Even if I'm off by 100%, that's still less than a C-note to be getting up to your elbows in someone's face! You ain't going to be knocking Bill Gates off his perch that way.

You dig Fixing Teeth. Dude, if you get off on this stuff, I don't want you near my choppers because obviously you are not right in the head! There is no way in the world that anyone can enjoy this job. Maybe someone is holding your family hostage and the only way they will live to see their next Christmas (or Hannkah, if you prefer) is if you go to dental school for a bunch of years, open up your own practice, build a regular clientele, attend the laugh-a-minute dentist conventions and proceed to work on people's mouths. Only after buying your first boat with money generated from root canals will your family be returned to you. That is the only reason why you might actually like wielding those instruments of death. If you say you enjoy it because you want to help people return their choppers to good working order, you're just a lying sack of shit.

Addicted to Heroin-Laced Mocha Lattes. Possible, but might be a stretch.

Chicks. There have been a few cases where dentists have been, how you say, "inappropriate" with their female patients. Probably a few male patients too - especially from the guys who couldn't quite make it as Catholic priests. I can just picture those first heady days of dental school:

Dentist Wannabe #1: "I can't wait to be a dentist so I can get lots of chicks!"
Dentist Wannabe #2: "Really? Dentists get lots of chicks?"
DW #1: "Sure, my brother! Get the babes horizontal in these sweet chairs with a little laughing gas and you're good to go!"
DW #2: "Uh, isn't that kind of illegal?"
DW #1: "Illegal, schmillegal! Bring on the sedated chicks with dental issues!"

This theory is flawed in that, just like hookers, you can only be so selective in who you choose as customers. You can wait for Pam Anderson to bring her dental business to your little practice but it gets hard to make the payments on your nifty dental chair without working on a few people who look like the female Phys Ed. teacher in Porky's. Sure, you can always use the laughing gas angle, but the authorities kind of frown on that.


As you can plainly see, there is no logical reason to become a dentist. Next time you are in The Chair (note the capital letters), ask old Dr. Dentures why he got into the field. I'll bet you dimes to doughnuts that there was some sort of head trauma involved. At the same time, remember that Dustin Hoffman wasn't being tortured by a podiatrist in Marathon Man. Don't say I didn't warn you.