This week started with a newsletter crisis. It was Friday afternoon, and I logged into my newsletter service account ( Revue ). On the top of the page, written in small font and almost hidden from the eye, there was an announcement: "We're shutting Revue down. Learn more".

Assuming it was just ordinary website maintenance, I clicked the announcement, thinking I would just need to plan my newsletter publication to avoid the website downtime.

How wrong I was:

"Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted".

What?!

Revue is not a small platform. It is OWNED by Twitter. And what's the deal with DELETING all of my data? Surely there are writers out there who won't be quick enough to export their newsletters only to lose their creation forever.

Here's what Twitter, the owner of Revue, had to say: 

"This has been a hard decision because we know Revue has a passionate user base, made up of people like you," 

Followed by:

"We'll cut to the chase: from January 18, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account. On that date, Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted."

So   I commented on Twitter  : 

Dear Twitter: Shutting down Revue newsletter service (that you own) and giving my fellow writers and me a month to find a solution before DELETING all our previous newsletters is not a good way to gain trust among writers. @ShaySharonOMFS

Feel free to  hit like or leave me a comment  on Twitter; I have a feeling that Twitter will not make my comment very visible 😀. 

With that off my chest, I went to work. I migrated my newsletter to  ConvertKit  and  Substack  (yes, I will publish my newsletter in two separate services) and renovated  my website . I spent hours on HTML, Javascript, automation, and broken links. 

But even after all that, many broken links to my newsletter still lead nowhere. I will continue to work on it, but if you run across a link that leads you to a "webpage doesn't exist 404" message, please let me know. 

Some might think: "Where do you find time to do all that during your fellowship?" Well, it was challenging, and I didn't get much sleep this week. But I decided that this newsletter would get published every Friday, come rain or shine. 

Speaking of rain, this week the rain reminded me of the scene from Forrest Gump where he described rain that comes in all shapes and forms, sideways and straight up 🌧️. 

On top of that, I have a wind corridor next to my hospital, or as I like to call it, an umbrella cemetery. I'm still trying to figure out if I should find a more robust umbrella ☂️, a dedicated (and ridiculous-looking) storm suit, or just let it go and get wet. They're also talking about a storm this weekend (minus 9 🥶), so I'll let you know how that turned out. 

This week I dropped my dear wife and kids at the airport. They will spend two weeks in Israel with family and friends 🇮🇱. Among other good things, they will have an opportunity to eat a good old Israeli cottage cheese and Tahini. 

I will finally have a day off this Monday because of Christmas 🎅; as I mentioned last week, I plan to sleep. I hope that my phone and on-call pager won't put an end to this dream 😴.

This week we'll discuss the ups and downs of being a dentist. I started dental school in 2004, and a lot has happened since. I worked as a general dentist, an OMFS resident, a board-certified OMFS, and a fellow. I got to know the kinks and tricks of private practice, corporate dental employment, and dental faculty. I pursued research and graduate degrees during dental school, and got an intense experience of the MD world being a medical student. 

So today, I'll take on the opportunity to share my experience over the last two decades to help you answer the question, "should I become a dentist?"

Number 18, enjoy!

"Lucky people just try stuff. Unlucky people suffered from paralysis by analysis. They wouldn’t do anything until they walked through every single angle and by then the world had moved on." - Richard Wiseman

Table of contents

1. Main Article - Should I Become a Dentist?

2. OMFS World

3. Stuff (App, Book)

Main Article - Should I Become a Dentist?

🙋 I get this question a lot, and this newsletter is an excellent opportunity to answer it.

👴 Before we start, remember that my dentistry journey involved ~20 years of training, which is about twice the time most dentists invest in becoming specialists. So whatever I experienced is not a reflection of the "typical" pathway. 

🤓 On the other hand, my extensive training allowed me to experience first-hand dental school, medical school, OMFS residency, PhD, research fellowship, and clinical fellowship. So I will use it to put my answer into a larger perspective.

Storytime!

👦 I didn't think of becoming a dentist when I was a kid, nor have I known what I was getting into when I enrolled in dental school. From the age of 14 I knew, and I mean KNEW, that I wanted to become a medical doctor. 

📕 I have read medical books since I was 14, and joined the Israeli emergency services (MDA) at 15. I initially applied for medical school at 23 and almost made the cut, but I was eventually rejected. 

🦷 At that time, I started to consider dentistry because becoming a dentist has always been a more "practical" and "live a normal life" alternative. So after contemplating and having long conversations with my parents, I decided to go for dentistry and stop pursuing medical school. The following year I applied to dentistry school and got accepted. 

🤔 I have pondered this decision ever since. I do not regret it, just the good old "what if" thoughts that tend to come up. 

🏐 I now know that I made this decision because it felt more practical, not because it came from the heart. However, this practical decision enabled me to acquire a fundamental skill that serves as a safety net to this day. It is a toolbox that will always be there for me, providing me job security and complete control of my profession. 

🧠 On the contrary, all my following decisions were made because I KNEW this was what I wanted. I knew I wanted to become a scientist, I knew I wanted to become an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, I knew that I wanted to go to medical school as an OMFS, and I knew I wanted to become a head and neck surgeon. 

❓Would I prefer to have it any other way? Would I choose to become a medical doctor without being a dentist? So let's start answering the question - "Should I become a dentist?"

💪 First, are you interested in total control over your profession? A huge benefit of being a dentist is the inherent ability to control the nature of your profession. Although a dentist's workplace largely depends on the practice (employed or self-owned, type of patients served, etc.), dentists typically work in offices or clinics where they see patients one-on-one. The atmosphere in these settings is mainly dictated by the dentist. In other words, you're calling the shots, even if it's not your practice. 

⬇️ But there's a flipside to this benefit. Starting your own practice is a significant challenge, and at times you may feel lonely and lost. However, you should see these challenges as opportunities to invest in yourself and your profession, and it gets easier with time. 

Some people just see things that the rest of us can't... Lionel Messi, a legend.

👨🏻‍💻 Second, are you willing to invest in years of dental school?Becoming a dentist requires 6-8 years in order to be licensed. The first years are typically spent obtaining an undergraduate degree, with courses focusing on biology, anatomy, pathology, and physiology. In the following (clinical) years, students receive hands-on training through coursework and internships while also taking part in clinical activities with patients. 

🥵 These two parts are incredibly different. The studies in the first few years weren't easy for me, especially because I had a part-time job as an SAT teacher for 25 hours a week. The clinical part was much less challenging intellectually, but was demanding manually. You need to master the precise nature of a dentist work, while also managing your patients and clinic time. My advice - become a dental assistant for at least six months in order to witness the true nature of the job. If you can't find a place to hire you, volunteer! The worse thing that can happen is that you will experience firsthand how to run a business.

👩‍⚕️ Lastly, the big "should I go to dental or medical school" question. As someone who has done both, I think that the answer lies within how much control you want over your profession, what's your attitude towards teamwork, and how much you like the actual work of a dentist. Regarding controlling your profession, I believe that dentistry will allow you to have this control the moment you step out of dental school, for better or for worse. As for teamwork, dentistry has much less teamwork than most medical professions. Most dentists prefer it this way, as it allows them more control without anyone breathing down their neck. I like the mix of the two, but more towards the side of teamwork. This is why I chose hospital OMFS as my main practice and private practice for about 20% of my time. 

So this is how I see it.

🧪 We haven't touched on research today, nor have we discussed the money issue with choosing your profession. I have much to say on both, but will leave it to another Friday.

"If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough." - Vicki Robin

OMFS World

🥼For the OMFS resident - No matter what will be the primary focus of your practice, extracting teeth and placing dental implants will always be your bread and butter. Although residency training takes place in a hospital setting, mainly around trauma, infections, and major surgeries, "tooth cases" will be the main focus when you're outside the hospital. So plan these cases with your mentors, learn from their experience, and work on these fundamentals THROUGHOUT your residency.

🩺For the non-MD medical professional - Sexual assault should be managed in a hospital with a dedicated team trained for these situations. It is critical to refer the patient to these hospitals! Postexposure medical prophylaxis will target chlamydia and gonorrhea with doxycycline and ceftriaxone, hepatitis B with vaccine and immunoglobulin (if not previously vaccinated), trichomonas vaginalis with metronidazole, and HIV with multidrug combination.

Stuff

📱Application I use - Ulysses is a writing app that can help you write anything from a simple blog post to a book-length manuscript. It provides powerful tools, yet it is intuitive and easy to use. I used this app for a while, but then I started to write my newsletter directly on the Revue website because I wanted to simplify my process. However, after the recent newsletter fiasco, I think I will start using it again. Especially now when I want to upload my newsletter to three different places without needing to reformat it repeatedly.

📚 Book I read - The Art and Business of Online Writing is an excellent book that I read on my Kindle nowadays. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in online writing, as a hobby or a business. I use it as a tool to improve my writing.

Epilogue 

Dear god in heaven. 

This was by far the most difficult week writing a newsletter, and I'm glad I saw it through without missing the deadline. I think I can now write a newsletter on how to write a newsletter...

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Have a great weekend!

Shay