Posts by Matthew Nguyen12

I honestly don't get how anyone can dance through that kind of pain😲 It’s like, think about it—a ballerina’s legs are basically her instrument, just like a singer’s voice is their whole deal, right? So shouldn't there be way more focus on specialized care, recovery, and actually treating those injuries properly instead of just pushing through it?😕

Do you think professional ballerinas and those other pro dancers have some kind of secret ritual for taking care of their feet since it’s literally their livelihood? Like, do they get a dedicated manicurist or a private pedicurist on speed dial or something? From what I can tell, they’re basically dealing with constant blisters and all sorts of nasty stuff all the time😲 Their feet are probably as beat up as a set of tires on a long-haul trucker😍

Honestly, finding a solid gig and actually making decent money is becoming such a massive uphill battle for everyone in medicine & dentistry lately. It feels like we’re all just heading toward a future where unemployment is going to be the norm for our field. It’s a real shame they aren't approving more residency programs right now, but hey, I guess it's a case of you get what you pay for, right?
It really warms my heart to see how much common ground we have here, and honestly, Zachary Thompson9 hit the nail on the head; it really should have been labeled "medicine & dentistry"

Zachary Thompson9, I can't even tell you how much of a blur today has been, but honestly, back when I was grinding through those medical exams, I ended up taking a bunch of them right alongside the dentistry students—and let me tell you, there wasn't a single shred of difference in the questions they were throwing at us. It feels like trying to make a real dent in the system is a losing battle because, no matter what you try to push through during something like an internal medicine rotation, everything just ends up being treated as equally vital anyway. I guess the real kicker is whether gynecology is even still part of the curriculum for dentists (I couldn't quite remember if that was still the case)🙂 To be fair, I don't think a general practitioner or a dentist would feel particularly "in their element" if they suddenly had to deliver a baby or something. It’s probably better to just have a specialized midwife on hand for stuff like that, right?😍

Zachary Thompson9, nobody knows everything, right?😕 That’s kind of the whole point. But honestly, I don't really buy into that whole "deeper" versus "lighter" argument. From what I understand, a dentist doesn't deal with orthopedics, sure, but they definitely handle oral surgery—something a general practitioner just isn't trained for. If you ask me, it’s more like general medicine covers a massive, wide-ranging territory, while dentistry acts more like a specialized field within that ecosystem. Still, there's no denying that being a dentist requires someone to have a rock-solid foundation in medicine & dentistry first.🙏

I was originally thinking about going down the medicine & dentistry route, but honestly, things worked out pretty well this way too. To be totally real with you guys, I spent most of my college years just messing around and taking it easy, then I basically skipped the mid-life crisis part, got married right away, and jumped straight into the workforce. Though, now that I actually sit back and think about what my retirement is going to look like... 😬

Honestly, trying to split medicine & dentistry into two different worlds just doesn't make any sense if you think about it for more than a second. I mean, how are you even supposed to function as a dentist if you don't have a solid grasp on general medicine? It's all connected, you know?

Hey Lawrence Wells, just wanted to drop this here: I've been grinding in medicine & dentistry for about seven years now, with five of those specifically focused on the dental side of things.😠

I’ve been scrolling through some of the older threads here and noticed there’s a ton of friction between MDs and dentists, which honestly just baffles me. I actually pulled my medical degree in Cleveland first, but then—mostly because I was totally smitten by this gorgeous colleague who ended up becoming my wife😍—I went ahead and knocked out dental school too, so officially, yeah, I’m a "dentist."😬
I only had to take the Hippocratic Oath once, since the wording is identical whether you're an MD or a dentist. And look, I won't bore you with the details, but I remember seeing this quote from the New England Journal of Medicine back on September 10, 1994; vol. 309, from the
editor in chief
: "Why should there even be a separate profession dedicated solely to treating the oral cavity? 😁If we started assigning specific professions to every single body part, we might as well have a specialized career just for the brain (the seat of reason). There is undeniably more in common between the mouth and the rest of the digestive tract than there is between the end of the digestive tract and the brain. Any argument for the oral cavity being its own distinct field is more historical than logical" (end of quote)👍
So, to all my younger colleagues out there, the veterans, and those of you still grinding through med school: the mission for both groups is to treat the whole human being. It doesn't matter if the patient is hurting because of a tooth or a finger. Healing is healing, and at the end of the day, the one doing the healing is a doctor.👍