Career Equity In Schools And The Workplace
Introduction
As generations pass, women are becoming more and more relevant in the professional field, taking over more white collar occupations, handling more responsibilities, juggling their career, home care and even childcare and continuously growing within their fields. Particularly, women are becoming more influent in the dental field. Solana, in her article “Women in Dentistry see Progress, Continued Challenges”, explains how dentistry, which was once particularly male dominated, with only a sliver of female dentists graduating in the late 1960’s, has now become a growing profession for women today, . With women beginning to take over this once male dominated career, women are still having to work very hard to “earn” their place in the field which is affecting many female dentists all over America.
Career Description
A dentist can be a doctor of dental medicine otherwise known as a DMD, or can be a doctor of dental surgery or DDS. Both titles require the same schooling and requirements, however, the title one receives as a dentist whether it be DSD or DMD, is mostly dependent on which university you graduate from; usually universities on the south side of America will offer a DMD and those on the north will offer a DSD. Both DMD and DDS are equivalent as far as their level of licensing and ability to practice and both are considered upper level jobs as licensing and several years of schooling is required. To become a dentist, one must first obtain an undergraduate degree. This degree can technically be in any subject, however certain pre-requisites are required for one to take in order to have the ability to apply to dental school. Pre requisites will mostly include but not limited to, core science classes such as chemistry and biology courses. Aside from an undergraduate degree, a DAT or dental admissions test, will be required for application of dental school. After acceptance into a dental school, four more years of school are required until finally receiving licensing to become a dentist. In general, approximately 8 years of school are required before becoming a dentist. Specialties require extra years depending on the specialty. Dentists diagnose and treat problems with patients’ teeth, gums, and other parts of the mouth. The “Occupational Outlook Handbook”, summarizes dentist by explaining that they “provide advice on oral care along with suggestions for at home lifestyle and diet so patients can practice preventative care while not at the dentist”.
Dentists follow through with treatment by performing restorative, endodontic, cosmetic and surgical procedures. These procedures may include, extractions, fillings, root canals, crowns, bridges etc. Some dentists may choose to predominantly treat in one category, such as restorative dentistry, and refer patients to other dentists or specialist for other procedures such as extractions and root canals. Dentist are trained to do many procedures, however, depending on the difficulty, medical history of patient and diagnosis, the dentist may refer to a specialist, as they may feel it is not within their scope to treat the patient for a certain procedure. Associated careers include but are not limited to endodontist, who specialize in endodontic procedures, periodontists, who specialize in gum tissue and surgery, pediatric dentists who specialize in child dental care, oral surgeons who specialize in oral maxillo facial procedures including extractions, cleft palate, trauma etc., and orthodontists who specialize mostly in braces and correcting positioning of teeth in the oral cavity. Dentists also specialize in informing patients regarding preventative care and at home dental care as well. Dentists may choose to work under the supervision of other dentists, or work in conjunction with the owner of a practice. Dentists may also own their own practices as the sole owner or decide to hire other dentists to work under them. Certain requirements must be met for obtaining a dental office such as legal requirements with HIPPA and compliance with OSHA.
The salaries of dentists can also vary depending on if they own a practice or work for one. On average dentists are not paid hourly, dentist usually make profit off of the procedures they are performing or will be reimbursed through insurance, which pays only a portion of what a procedure may truly cost and the patient will end up paying whatever amount the insurance did not cover. Dentists who work for other dentists, usually make approximately a 30 percent commission rate of the work that is done by a patient. For example, if a dentist that works for a practice that is not his or hers, treatment plans a crown for $1000, the dentist will approximately make $300 off of the crown (not including taxes, lab fees ect), while the other percentage will go to the owner. Now assuming the owner will receive approximately 70 percent of the profits another dentist may treatment plan, almost or more than 50 percent of that profit will go to overhead including payroll, office fees, material fees ect, leaving the owner with a 10-20% profit range from having another dentist perform work in their office. The average median pay for dentists in 2017 was $158, 120 making dentistry one of the highest paying jobs according to the “Occupational Outlook Handbook”, with an outlook of 19 percent predicted growth rate in the following years to come. In Florida dentistry is a growing field as the state has three major universities that allow for doctorate degrees in dentistry, with this being said, competition in Florida for dentistry is also at a high rate.
Equity Issue Description
Dentists perform a wide variety of tasks including educating and instructing patients on at home and preventative dental care, as well as diagnosing and treating dental conditions, creating treatment plans, reading x-rays and performing restorative, endodontic, cosmetic and surgical procedures. Dentists work in practices either as the practicing owner or work for other dentists who own practices. Hiring practices can be found by sending in resume’s electronically, calling practices, or hire through reference. The outlook for dentistry has grown over the years, reaching a 19 percent outlook level which is higher than normal for most jobs. The demographics taken from the “University of Florida”, one of Florida’s biggest universities to attend for dental school, are mostly inclusive with male and females, all ethnicities, and graduating dentist from ages ranging anywhere from 23-33. The average median pay for dentists in 2017 was approximately $158120. There is not a significant wage gap between male and female currently, however taking into account ergonomics, women have had to earn their place, pay and respect in dentistry.
Women are now almost at an equivalent graduation rate in dentistry when it comes to men, but not many years ago, women were not florescent in the dental field because it was considered a “man’s job”. . In the past, women were not compensated fairly in comparison to men, due to the fact that dentistry was always associated as being a male dominated career. As time continued, it became more and more normal for women to pursue and graduate from a dental career and the wage gap began to lessen and lessen where now, although still slightly measurable, the results are almost statistically insignificant. However, women did have to work hard to earn their place in dentistry as far as ergonomics go. Many women were also exposed to a pay gaps.
Studies show many female dentists still are facing pay gaps today. Studies have been done to adhere to these statistics. Lam, in his article, “Education Dosen’t Solve the Gender Wage Gap” explains that graduation rates for dentist have come to a nearly 50/50 female vs male statistic, and taking into account all variables, a pay gap is still visible in today’s society. Although women have come very far from where they once were, women are still having to earn their place in the field and are slowly but surely closing the gap between males and females in the dental field.
Ethical and Legal Implications
The Equal Pay Act was put into place in 1963 to instill equal pay between men and women. Although a gender wage gap is still prevalent and took a long time to become as narrow as it is in this day and age, businesses are able to decide pay wages and it can be extremely difficult to verify if pay gaps are due to racial reasons or simply educational and work reasons. After this act was passed several systems of checks and balances were put into place to prevent business from further allowing wage gaps to increase. Legal implications can include fines, lawsuits and even termination of companies or company owners. Recommendations to improve these conditions include instilling mandatory yearly evaluations that may be monitored by a third, non-bias party which can analyze different conditions and give feedback as far as if there are any discrepancies in pay.
Conclusion
Overall women in the dental field are becoming more and more relevant and are lessening the wage gap. Women have come far in their careers and will continue lessening the gap as more and more graduation rates increase and more women enter the dental field. In a “man’s world” women are working hard to become prevalent and be considered equal counterparts in ergonomics, education and pay gap.
