Dentistry, A Suicidal Profession

My first exposure to dentistry, out of the chair, came when I began babysitting for a dentist. He worked on the weekends, and his daughter and I would tag along. Initially I stayed as far away from the dentist chair as possible, but later, I became curious, and gradually observant. By the time I reached high school, I was intrigued by every aspect of dentistry. The procedures quickly turned from one of torment into something more familiar. Coming from a family of engineers and contractors, I recognized the doctor’s instruments because they were similar to tools I had grown up watching my father use. I began to think of dentistry as performing small scale construction in a small hole. Performing such intricate procedures while simultaneously utilizing my mind and hands both excited me and complimented my detail attentive personality.

As a teenager, I read Doctors by Erich Segal and instantly, my love for medical sciences was born. Though, I was certain that I wanted to pursue a career in health sciences, dentistry was not always what I had in mind for a career. But it was my father’s dream and I decided to live it. In 2009, at the beginning of my first term in

A career in Dentistry is my main goal in life. I want to pursue a career in Dentistry for many reasons. Being a Dentist, you get to aid people and make them feel better about themselves. I have the personal qualities to be a Dentist and know that I would be great at the job. I would look forward to going to work every day. Dentistry contains many tools and oral practices that I am not familiar with. It would be awesome to get to be familiar with the lifestyle of a Dentist. Someday, I might even be able to live their lifestyle. Focusing in school is the main priority for all jobs. Dentistry also involves a diverse (longer) college route than most. This means that the academic requirements to be a Dentist are quite time consuming, but the

When I was about 5-years-old, I was the only one in my Kindergarten class that was not frightened of the dentist. I was the only child for as long as I can remember who absolutely adored going to see my dentist; I thought it was better than going to the Science Center, which was a big deal for a child in my generation. Growing up, I watched people’s faces twitch with (terror, panic, dismay) as I explained that it was my ultimate dream to become a dental hygienist. “What if a child bites you?” “The human mouth is disgusting! Do you not realize the horror of this occupation?” Listening to people question and insult my dreams only enhanced my dedication to this occupation even more. I was determined to prove them wrong; to prove that this was

Student debt can socially affect a person’s life for years after graduation. Taking out thousands of dollars in loans causes a negative effect in student’s lives. In reference to Natasha Yurk Quadlin and Daniel Rudel, who has a Ph.D. in sociology and both work at Indiana State University, student loans affect persistence and completion for undergraduates. There is a correlation between how students do in their classes, the amount of time spent on their work, and the amount of time working in a job to pay off debt. Students become so stressed that they do not complete their college courses and enter their path of a new career. (Quadlin, Rudel, 2015). When students do not perform well in their classes, they tend to want to compensate for it. However, they cannot because they have to go to their jobs, to help pay off the thousands of debt that they owe and for their everyday necessities. Due to the amount of stress that they have to handle, it affects their personal health. Katrina Walsemann, in a representative study on student loans and early adult mental health, argues that “We are speculating that part of the reason that these types of loans are so stressful is the fact that you cannot defer them, they follow you for the rest of your life until you pay them off,” (Blake, 2015). It also mentions that the students with higher levels of debt incurred, have had higher levels of depressive symptoms. A college student’s overall health is

ith a weary face and sweaty palms, I walked into the gloomy dental offices as a yearly ritual. The intimidating environment of the office made me feel knots in my stomach. As a child I never enjoyed visiting dentists because I was convinced that these humans were merciless people who could not care less if I was in pain. Ironically, the lifetime career I seek for now is the career I disliked before. The decision to become a dentist developed when I had the desire to give children a better experience and a different perspective on professionals of this field. From my experience, the dentists were not gentle and did not give me time to collect myself before pulling a tooth out. Orthodontics is a profession that I am pursuing since I have consistently desired to work in a healthcare career that enables me to help people by using my interest and talents in hand motor and communication skills. I strive for perfection and work patiently, as well as diligently, which will help me throughout this profession. There are skills that I need to obtain such as shadowing or volunteering in a dental office, which is also part of the educational preparation needed for dental school. All of these talents combined are essential for a typical day in dentistry in which I need to create a safe and comfortable environment for the excessive amounts of patients daily

Naraghi, the general dentist that I shadowed for almost a year, had always told me to follow a career path that makes you excited to get up in the morning and I would always think about dentistry at that moment. In his office, I set up the room for patients, took their blood pressure and helped them feel more comfortable. I also spent a significant amount of time with Dr. Naraghi learning about dental tools and their uses. He became my mentor and familiarized me with different responsibilities of a dentist. He shone light on how special is the bound between a patient and his dentist as you could always hear him singing when working on his patients and they seemed to love his attitude and sometimes even request songs from

However, an argument was raised that the statistics which show Dentists are highly prone to suicides are a myth. The reason for the exaggeration of numbers of suicides in Dentist dates back to 1920’s when the media portrayed dentists being more prone to suicides (Lange, Fung, & Dunning, 2012). The significant reason for such media portrayal was the density of population and also the categorization of dentists as health care professionals over the past few decades (Lange, Fung, & Dunning, 2012). For example, one of the Midwestern state reported 244,628 deaths over a period of 1989-2004 amongst which 3002 suicides which is equivalent to 1.2% of total deaths. Among those 3002 deaths only 4 of them were Dentists which indicates a very low percentage of suicidal deaths in dentists (Lange, Fung, & Dunning, 2012). It seems from the above statistics that the deaths recorded as suicides in dentists are low when compared to people in other categories. However, every life matters and even if it is one death related to suicide it should be prevented because if a doctor is alive, he/she can save hundreds of lives in their professional

Dr. Stuart Slavin is the Associate Dean for Curriculum and a Professor of Pediatrics at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. He researched “Student Mental Health Across the Educational Continuum: Challenges and Opportunities” (Slavin). In 2008 and 2009, Dr. Slavin studied stress and depression levels among students. He found that there were high stress and depression rates in high school and college students, but even more in medical school students, students in residency, and physicians. Through research, Dr. Slavin helped reduce the stress and depression rates. The high rates of stress and depression among medical students were most likely influenced by cultural values and were both personal troubles and public issues.

Dental Hygiene is one of the most fastest growing occupations. Employment of dental hygienists is to grow 30 percent through 2016, much faster than the average for all occupations. This growth ranks dental hygienists among the fastest growing occupations, in response to increasing demand for dental care and the greater use of hygienists. The demand for dental services will grow because of population growth, older people increasingly retaining more teeth, and a growing focus on preventative dental care. Job prospects are expected to remain excellent. Older dentists, who have been less likely to employ dental hygienists, are leaving the occupation and will be replaced by recent graduates, who are more likely to employ one or more hygienists.

While physicians are highly regarded as the life-savers of society, there is an irony when the profession also boasts a high rate of depression and suicide. Around 400 physicians commit suicide each year, along with nearly 10% of first year resident doctors admit to suicidal thoughts. In comparison, the suicide rate for doctors is double to that of an average American. This tragedy can be averted if public was simply more informed. Society often puts those in this profession onto a pedestal, and that these people have few to no problems in life (Lowrey, & Anderson, 2006). However, this is not the case and the stereotype prevents physicians from reaching out for help. They often deal with their depression alone, which only aggravates this problem.

Statistics have proven that dentists have one of the highest suicide rates out of all of the other occupations in America. Dentists' jobs can be very repetitive. For the most part, they perform the same procedures in the same environment every day. Their patients can often be boring or hard to deal with, and worst of all they will deal with patients looking to sue for dental malpractice. If bad enough, this can put them out of business. As many people know, there are dental specialties such as; orthodontists, prosthodontists, pedodonists, periodontists, and oral and maxillofacial surgeons. The most unrecognized dental specialty is forensic odontology. Forensic odontologists are dentists that work in the field of forensic science.

I can relate this experience to the periodontal course. This experience relates to it because Lisa lectured us on smoking tobacco cessation, as well as the over all health of an individual. I remember she told us that the oral health could influence the health of a human body. If a patient fails to visit the dental clinic regularly, it could be affecting his or her overall health. Also, I can relate this experience to my patients I have seen so far. So far in this semester, I have seen patient who have never been to the dentist due to dental anxiety. From what I have learned from them, it takes a lot of courage to go seek for oral hygiene care. Helping them understand the importance of seeking treatment regularly, helped improved their anxiety

Here’s a phrase I’m sure we’ve all heard in a rather condescending tone from our parents and teachers, “So, you’re just going to pull out the tooth?”. It’s essentially the adult version of “bock, bock.” Yes, it is a phrase that drips shame on all it’s said to, but no one even knows the backstory for it. Well, expect for me, which is the obvious point of this whole paper, so let’s just get to the point.

Going to the dentist can be the most terrifying thing for some people. It has been proven by many studies that people rather take the pain of gum disease ,or even a broken tooth than to step into a dental office. The noisy tools, the scary instruments, and the thought of the dentist drilling into your teeth doesn’t make it any better. Dental anxiety and phobia is very common today, it is estimated that about 9%-15% of Americans fear the dentist. Even though there are many cases of people who fear the dentist and might even take the pain, they are transmitting that fear to other people and also their kids. The thing is if they realized that by going to the dentist the could save your life. Many cases are shown today of many disease and infections