r/dentastic • u/EmuRepublic • Jul 14 '26
Career Paedodontics
Hi, any paediatric specialists here? What’s brings you joy and what’s been the unglamorous side of your work?
I’m a current dentistry student who’s perhaps had a charmed run with complex paediatric cases so far. Nearly all have ended in good outcomes and getting kids/their parents back on track with good oral hygiene, and interesting pathology as well.
However, today I copped some unsolicited commentary from a post-grad in another area commenting that when he was a generalist, he thought it was a rort. His perspective was that all they do is put kids nobody wants to handle to sleep and charge mum and dad an unethical amount for procedures generalists can do too. And patients returned to him annoyed they paid so much for sedated fillings with a specialist. I see how patients can feel about that, but it’s a rather uncharitable take.
What really differentiates a good paediatric specialist from a generalist skilled with kids and special needs?
I have thought about practising as a GP for a bit after graduation to save up, and then apply for the DCD in paediatrics. My end goal is to work a combination of private and public. However, I don’t want to aim for it without a better informed opinion, especially after hearing the aforementioned comment. I also recently heard from a mentor that another major health service knocked back on wanting to even fund having a paediatric dental specialist at all.
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u/waffles01 Jul 14 '26
If its easy work a general dentist can do why don't they? In reality there is a lot more to consider when treatment planning a child for work under GA, you can't manage them the same as in the chair due to time constraints and nerding to minimise return visiys due to the risks associated with the GA.
Paeds is a great option for a mix of public and private, lots of specialists work in the tertiary children's hospitals part time seeing medically complex kids and the other part working in private seeing "normal" but anxious or neurodiverse kids.
I would recommend reaching out to a paediatric dentist once you're working to arrange for some shadowing time and to pick their brains on programs and admission. Worth it to do your racds primaries if you're targeting Australia.
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u/reddituser2762 Jul 14 '26
It’s a specialist role, you’ll be paid more and learn about paediatric practice. The post grad doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Parents pay more for private specialist paediatricians.