let's talk about the real issues there are when it comes to being a woman in dentistry straight up called me a I have so much to say about maternity leave you think you're done after you come back from maternity leave no there is much to be done for the baby that you have to now do at work the Dentistry is a little different than I thought it was going to be I know for myself I grew up being told that Dentistry was a good profession for a girl all the time I'd be told that and amongst the possible jobs that I could have Optometry Pharmacy law Dentistry was always the one that people are like you should go be a dentist it's great for a Girl by the way if you are new here my name is Dr Joyce Kong I'm a cosmetic dentist a practice owner content creator and I've been out of dental school for 14 years for this video I surveyed over 50 practicing women dentists on what they really thought about the profession now before we dive in I want to address the elephant in the room it has traditionally never been positive when people say that something is good for a girl like what's that saying you throw like a girl that's never been a compliment in the past and so when I started really thinking about the fact that I was told that Dentistry is a good profession for a girl I was a little bit peeved about that but I decided that's not really what I want to focus on in this video I also don't want to pin boys against girls I don't want to say like is Dentistry better for a boy or a girl that's like absolutely not what I want to talk about I want to focus on you know girls I am a proponent for women in dentistry and I really think women do have a lot of qualities that make them a good dentist and in fact I have lots of patients that seek me out because I am a woman which is very different actually because I've been doing this for 14 years and in the beginning of my career got a lot of patients who did not want to see me because I was a a young Asian female and I look like I had no experience these days everything is Shifting where women are more prevalent in dentistry and people actually want to be seen by me they seek me out they come from like Utah and far far off places to California just to be seen by me to do their Dentistry so it has shifted and it is great so in that respect yes women make great dentists there is no disputing that now I don't know about you guys but the people who used to say that Dentistry is a good profession for a girl world were actually people who love me my parents and my grandparents and my family came from Korea to America and I know what they really meant by saying that they wanted me to have a better life a less hard life and I say it like that I don't say an easier life because Dentistry is not an easy job and I don't want people to misconstrue that but I understand that the people who love me that came before me that worked so hard their entire lives to give me everything that I have they wanted me to to not have to work quite as hard as they had wanted and that is sort of the a very common immigrant story these are the things that they thought Dentistry had to offer me number one it's not physically laborious number two is that it's stable and there's a level of status that comes with it number three is the ability to afford nice things or a certain quality of life number four it's a relatively safe environment and there are good working hours compared to like Physicians that are on call for example number five is less pressure overall like patients like it's not a life or death type of thing like it is sometimes with Physicians and so let's quickly go through each of these and verify whether these are actually true let's start with number one which is physically laborious now I think that this is one of the big misconceptions about Dentistry I did not really realize that it is physically laborious to be a dentist now I don't want to Discount people who actually do physical labor like I'm not out there diing holes building skyscrapers or doing anything that requires any lifting I know that is what is meant by physically laborious and thankfully I am not doing anything that physically laborious because my body is just not built for it but Dentistry is somewhat laborious maybe I should take out the physically part it is no it is physical labor it's we are working hunched over and people just think that our fingers are moving but it's actually like a whole body experience I'm halfway on this one I mean I know it's controversial but let me know what you guys think in the comments below number two is that it's stable and it also gives a level of status now I think stability is a tough word these days because what does it actually mean to be stable on the one hand if you are an associate do you ever have a stable job like if you work for somebody else I would dare argue that you never have stability in your job your job could be gone in a day on the other hand as a business owner can I really say that my job is stable well I'm not going to fire myself but if my business is not doing well then no it's not stable so stability is a hard one to come by I do think that Dentistry is probably more so of a stable job than like I've been seeing all these videos about people getting fired from Discord and I'm like ooh but what I'm hearing from a lot of new grads is that they're coming out into the workforce and they're finding that a lot of the job pool is not very desirable and they haven't been able to find jobs that they like working for and so now a lot of them are hopping from being Associates to trying to be business owners and that whole thing I'm going to say is not very stable it's just not and so I'm going to put a no for that one however this next part gives a level of status I think it does I will never forget the day that I walked across at stage at my dental school graduation and my grandma and grandpa were there and my parents were there and they were so proud of me for becoming a doctor meanwhile I do videos on Tik Tok and the kids are like you're not a real doctor and there's a little bit of like I think generational change where people are giving a little less respect to dentists as being doctors however the respect is still there it's still pretty good now the reason status is important when you're a woman is not just because you want to be called a doctor it's a reflection of a level of Education that is not extremely common that gives you some stability going back to the stable let's say if something bad happened in our lives let's say that my husband left me for a 21-year-old I don't really know or something trer C I would still be fine because I have the ability to get a job because I have a level of Education that not everybody has and so I think my grandparents really wanted me to have not only the education but they also wanted me to have something that made like an insurance policy it's almost like so that they could sleep at night knowing that I would would be fine moving forward or I'd find a way to be fine okay the ability to afford nice things yes we can afford nice things both me and my husband are dentist however if you watch my Vlogs we do not live a glamorous life we both have student loans and I think more and more people are starting to understand that dentists come out of school with a lot of student debt luckily me and Byron have both been out for a decade so the student loans were not as bad as they are now but still we have to be really smart about the way that we spend money because not only are we paying back a debt we also want to progress in our finances and get more Investments and things like that so we are not just balling out here we do live a comfortable life but we're not going crazy over here number four is that it's a safe environment with good hours and this one I would say is yes I mean there's nothing safer than just working from your home so Dentistry is less safe than that but there are hazards to every job I would say generally speaking Dentistry is pretty safe if you minus the aerosols during the pandemic and also the number one thing the women on Instagram were saying they like about the job is that for the amount of hours worked the pay is good relatively good so they are good hours where you can have a family like you're not on call overnight or anything like that and per hour the pay makes it worth it and then number five is that it's less pressure yes people are often not dying in my chair so thank goodness for that cuz I don't know how I would emotionally be able to handle that but there are a lot of pressures in dentistry it's just that people are not dying so I do believe that this is true I can't imagine a job where people's lives are actually in my hand they're Lively not livelihood but they're LI or dead I could not handle that okay so I mean those five things they're what Dentistry is known for everybody knows that these are all perks of being a dentist but let's talk about the real issues that are when it comes to being a woman in dentistry that we face out in the real world that have nothing to do with these five so number one is microaggressions being a woman in the field is actually an uphill battle and it's because it was a very male-dominated field and when you are a woman you will often find that it is difficult to command the same level of respect and I think in the same manner is an important one to distinguish because for example when a man does something that is considered assertive we are seen as being aggressive or and as a woman we have to be nice but not too nice or we are perceived as being weak and not strong leaders so there are a lot of like these or that these or that when it comes to being a woman and being a leader in your office so essentially why is this important because every day we deal with people who undermine our Authority and it's an extra strain that men don't have to deal with and personally I dealt with this when I took over a man's practice when I took over his practice first of all all the patients were like are you old enough are you old enough to be my dentist but that part I can handle I handled that all my life what was really hard is with employees and I feel like I did get somewhat lucky I mean my friend desk lady she's the oldest of the bunch in that she's been with me at the practice since the beginning when I took over and she's a grandma so she is older I thought that I would have the most problems with her because I just like assume that she'd be like the most traditional or the most not able to handle a woman half of her age you know bossing her around but she was actually the most respectable person in the office she'd always addressed me as doc she'd always ask me like what do you want to do in this situation and I'll tell her and she'll do it and she always made me feel like I wasn't fighting her for control and that I really appreciate I can't say that for some of the other employees that were coming and going especially the dental assistants and Now Dental Assisting is a tough job in itself but I did have one that straight up called me a to my face in the middle of the workday and when you're a woman you do sometimes think like okay was I being a because in the workplace I do really try not to be like that because of this whole microaggression thing that I was talking about and it was all my other employees that witnessed it and they were like no you were not being mean at all that sort of thing happens to women and it does not happen to men now I don't think this is purely a Dentistry only problem but it is common in dentistry because it used to be a lot more male dominated and the auxiliary staff are often women and so a lot of the old-timers in the field are used to being led by a man and when a newcomer comes in like a woman dentist some people are just not used to that and women I don't know sometimes it's hard for women to get along for whatever reason I don't really understand but it is kind of an issue and takes some getting used to for a lot of people but I do think that if you find the right team or an office with amazing people you deal with this much much less it's all about finding the right fit in the right environment and I'm lucky to say that everyone that works for me right now amazing and I'm like can I just keep this team like it is forever okay the next one is maternity leave I have so much to say about maternity mity leave and I did not really realize what an issue this was until I had my baby and here to tell you all about it maternity leave is a huge problem when you are a dentist and as an associate it's maybe not as bad because you can take time off that you don't own the practice and it's up to the owner to figure out what to do if you work in a bigger office where there are Associates to cover for you not as big of a deal but if you work in a really small office and they're waiting for you to come back there's a lot of pressure for you to cut your maternity leave short and to come back because the office needs you the other alternative is for them to find a temp dentist to fill your spot and then you're risking that temp becoming you know kind of like kicking you out of the practice or like you getting booted from the practice so there is a lot of pressure when it comes to maternity leave even when you're an associate but I will tell you that when you are an owner maternity leave is not even a real thing like what's maternity leave this is one of the reasons I feel that dentist is not really built to support women because when you're an owner you really cannot take a lot of time off again this depends on the type practice like if there's a lot of associate people in your practice and they can cover for you then that's fine but for a lot of us we work in very small practices we have small businesses and we don't make money unless we work and there are places in the world like in Canada I heard that they get like a year of paid maternity from the government not over here not in California I basically don't make any money in my business for as long as I'm on attorney leave so let's say that I take 3 months off a fourth of the year that we lost Revenue cuz there's no one else to be productive except maybe the hygienist is is running and people are always like oh you can get attemp dentist to come in for you listen I have a two chair practice nobody is coming so that the attempt can drill them they only come because of me they come because they trust me and I don't even know this Temp and I'm not there to monitor their work and and if they mess up all of these teeth while I'm gone then I have to fix everything so no I don't feel like that's even very cost effective and it doesn't take a load off it makes me even more stressed so what I did is I took 4 weeks off and I had a C-section which got infected and I hobbled back to work after 4 weeks and I did have an associate at the time that was there one day a week it was very helpful for a week or so but she also happened to be pregnant a month apart from me and so it it actually was not helpful at all actually just happens to be my luck but it's not easy when you are a solo woman in a small practice because if you do not physically work you do not get paid that is the reality of being a dentist and this is something that people from other professions really don't understand because they work at big companies and they get PTO and they get lots of stuff so I think it's important for people to be aware that this is what we deal with when we are small business owners women IND Dentistry there is no paid leave so moving on let's talk about once the baby's born you think you're done after you come back from attorney leave no there is much to be done for the baby that you have to now do at work especially if you are pumping pumping is one of the things I hated the most I did it for 6 months pumping is like you know you're pumping your milk out and putting them into bags and freezing them so that when you go home there's something for the baby to eat it's an issue in the dental office because dental office are not built the schedules are not built to promote pumping I mean the thing is when you have a new new Baby a very very small one you need to pump more frequently and then as time goes on your supply drops and then you don't have to pump as many times per hour but in the beginning you might be pumping every hour hour and a half 2 hours and if you are in dentistry you know how ridiculous that sounds it's like it's like scheduling into the schedule oh right now I'm going to go pump every hour like no that just does not work in dentistry and I am actually saying that from the perspective of somebody who pumped in the office I wore these portable pumps I would do my hygiene checks I would try to squeeze as much time as I could I didn't actually like go to my car and pump which is another issue there's often times no places for people to pump like in my office it's only 644 ft if anyone got pregnant I don't know if they would go into the bathroom and pump I feel like they would go into their cars and I feel bad about that but there is just no other space I do personally have a bathroom in my office it's like a teeny teeny tiny just a toilet bathroom but even that was really nice to have in my personal office because I could do a little bit of like pouring milk and and stuff like that in there and actually whenever I talk to other dentists who are women who are building out their practices I'm like make sure you build a personal bathroom so that you can pump and do things like that in the future but yes as if pumping is not stressful enough on the body and on our emotional state and like just having to be on the clock at all times there is an added component where you just feel bad just because you're at work doesn't mean you're productive like for us we have to actually be drilling and cleaning and doing things in order to make money and if you're at physically at the office but you're not working you're not making as much money for the office and it's a huge inconvenience for the office and I wish I didn't have to say like that because like I said I am a woman woman I deal with this too but it's just a reality and you just feel so bad you just feel so bad because everyone's kind of annoyed with you I hope that obviously with my office because it is a female office and I'm the owner and I'm dealing with the same exact things hopefully it's not as bad for people who work for me but I can imagine it being really tough in different situations so that is another issue another issue all right moving on now let's talk about Child Care Child Care is something that pains me like I've said over and over again you don't have to be a woman it's just any dentist cannot make money unless they are physically at work what this really means is that we need to prepare and pay for child care so we are paying for someone to watch our children while we go to work now this is actually such a big issue because we don't ever have the option of working from home and so let's say in a very idealized scenario let's say that my mom watches my baby if my mom is ever sick that poses a huge problem for us as dentists it's a big big problem we're like scrambling because our schedules are built especially for us we have tons of patients who are coming into the office expecting to be seen and if for whatever reason my mom can't come in that morning then there's no one to watch the baby and this is why I didn't end up getting a nanny I just don't trust people to show up for their job and I'm not saying that I don't trust my mom I trust my mom my mom will show up I don't know she will make it work but other people like nannies and stuff I just don't see them coming and so I send Preston to daycare now daycare is not foolproof either because if your child happens to be sick at daycare then they will call you in the middle of the day and you have to come pick them up in what world can a woman in dentistry what she to do there's patience scheduled for the entire day I can't just like take time off like cancel the entire day and go pick up my child because he's sick it's a conflict I mean I guess you're listening to this thinking if if your child's sick why don't you take time off but during the winter months they are sick a lot a lot a lot and sometimes it's a burden and you do obviously want to be there to take care of the baby but this is also your livelihood and so many people depend on you all the time it's really really hard so I do wish as a dentist I could work from home that is one of the things I don't like about being a dentist is not having the flexibility and the freedom to work from home and always feeling like I can't get sick or I have to have things you know go perfectly in my family life because I don't want it to disrupt my professional life okay now we're moving on to the last one this last one is not specifically maternity related as a lot of them have been but it can relate to maternity and that is taking time off taking 2 to 3 months off is nearly impossible when you're a dentist when you're an associate I think you could as long as you are leaving the practice for good the only time when that's somewhat acceptable is if you are going on something like a maternity leave or like something really serious is going on but when you're an owner you cannot just take time off like I haven't been on a vacation since 2019 and I know you guys are going to say just go on vacation I I actually don't like traveling very much I think I'm the only dentist who doesn't really like to travel very much but I'm just saying I don't take time off and there was a time I wanted to take time off when Preston was born Preston actually requires a little bit more attention than the average child and I wanted to take a few years off to take care of him and I just found because I'm a business owner I could not so that's really really hard but let's say that you have a mental health thing and you want to take a few months off that you also cannot do and that is really really hard it's an issue again I think this is all in line with all the cons I said about being a woman in dentistry now those are the five things I wish women in dentistry had more support for there needs to be more support for women in dentistry until then no I don't think that I can say that this profession is good for women I don't think I can put my stamp of approval on there until there's a little bit more support out there I do think that women make great dentists but again we're not talking about that we're talking about is this profession suitable built to support the women and I do not think so the way it is I think there's a long way to come before it is and I don't know how it's going to happen but it needs to more than half of the students in dental school are women so I know that there's going to be change it just I don't know what it's going to be you know I love being a dentist but I also love being a mom I just wish it was easier to do both of the things that I love CU right now it is painful and maybe it's just cuz my child is only 3 years old and I'm in the trenches but it has not been easy and people always message me and say like oh you make it look so easy no it's not easy I'm dying all right so what do you guys think please let me know in the comments below and if you are thinking of becoming a dentist do you feel like the pros still outweigh the cons let me know in the comments below also remember to subscribe join fam and the next video that I'm putting out is on the economics of my micropractice having a two chair practice and why that makes sense financially and why that doesn't make sense financially I think it'll be a very interesting one all right thanks for watching [Music] bye