Confession of an Ex-Future Dentist

Have I told you that I went to dentistry school back then? Well, it was a long time ago and it only last for 2 semesters. At the end of the last semester I thought that this is not for me, applied for another major, took the entry exam, and ended up studying economics instead.

Why did I quit? Not because of the environment. Although it’s in Surabaya instead of my hometown Jakarta, I had wonderful friends whose companionship I retained until now, and close relatives who made my life a lot more easier.

I couldn’t keep up with the subjects? Never a straight A student, but with a GPA of 3.0 I wasn’t doing badly. But there’s some truth in there. I was still in my sophomore year hence the lectures I went though were basically pretty generic. But then I saw the major challenge ahead. To be a dentist it’s not enough to be smart, you have to be pretty dexterous with your hands too. The difficulties I saw my seniors had to go through made me weak at the knees.

There was a pragmatic reasoning as well. Once you got your degree you can’t just open a practice. You have to go through “PTT”, kind of drafting in military service, where you have to serve in a puskesmas mostly in remote areas. Only after you completed 2 years of service the health department can give you a license to open your own practice. But not yet, the equipment needed to open a practice is also quite dear. Too long before you can enjoy your money.

As for the reason I chose to study dentistry at the first place, well, what can I say? It’s so unimaginative. Since I spent 2 years majoring in biology at high school why not go to medical or dentistry school, I thought. But then again, medical school is way out of my league. Next thing to do was checking the ratio between seats available vs. numbers of applicants. Most medical school: 1 seat every 5000 or so applicants. Not good. But then “Dentistry, Airlangga University” with 1:200 ratio was a reasonable bet. I wasn’t that desperate though to apply for some major with 1:25 ratio. So you can see there’s no idealistic motive behind the selection. That’s history though.

Recently I met with a good friend of mine who has the guts to continue and completed his study in dentistry. He has his own practice right now, and not doing bad at all. And then there’s another relative of mine who’s also a dentist, once showed me his (yet another) newest car, a latest edition of Benz. He told me, “this is a 3-months worth of work. And can you please tell me again why did you leave your study?” Oh my.

But above all, it’s not the money I envy. You see, that friend of mine (in his own words) is a moderately successful dentist with 5 patients each day on average. He bought his house 3 years ago in cash and his daily itinerary looks like this: work out at fitness centre or softball field in the morning, surf the internet after lunch, play with his kid in the afternoon, open the “business” at 5.00 PM at home. Moreover he’s moonlighting as a pitcher in the national soft ball league (for the fun of it rather than for the money), sometimes leaving his practice for more than 1 month. No boss, respectable job, steady income and enough time to enjoy it. Can you ask for more?

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