A Good Question From A Canadian Dentist

(Reprinted here with the permission of the Canadian Dental Association)

Q: I've found myself in the position of having to decide where to live, 7 years after graduation. My husband has been relocated to Vancouver and I am very ready to own my own practice. The question is, do I wait and associate in Vancouver and buy in Toronto because the remuneration is that much better (ie return to Toronto to live permanently) or do I buy in Vancouver because you do just as well? I realize both are very similar cities- small downtown practices or big all day and all night suburban practices.

I like both cities for different reasons so it's not a lifestyle decision per se.

I'm just wondering how dentists do across the provinces. Does anyone know the stats on that? The last thing I want to do is throw myself into an already saturated mix.

A: Your query is one of the most common questions that new and practicing dentists ask. Determining a good practice location has to take into consideration a wide variety of issues and information., most of them dealing with personal lifestyle choices.

But in terms of some data that may be helpful, incomes in the locations you have indicated, and population: dentist ratios may serve as good indicators for further exploration.

The population: dentist ratios in Vancouver and Toronto in 2005 were 852, and 934 respectively. The Canada average ratio was 1734, therefore both of these urban centres have a much greater concentration of dentists. However, this is to be expected, as the catchment area of patients is from the city centres. Nonetheless, these figures indicate that Vancouver may be slightly more saturated than Toronto, but not a significant difference.

When looking at salaries, occupational income data from the 2000 Canada census indicate that the average employment income for dentists was $108,034. This is the latest information we have from public sources on dental incomes. The average employment income in Vancouver was $79,138 versus $90,139 in Toronto. However, it should be noted that in every city male dentists reported earning significantly more income than female dentists. The median income of female dentists working in both Vancouver and Toronto were between $85,000 and $90,000, therefore, there were no significant differences for female dentists.

When taking this information into consideration, I would say that the differences in these two cities seem negligible and the most important factor when making this decision should be lifestyle considerations.

Costa Papadopoulos

Manager, Health Policy & Information
Canadian Dental Association

Editor’s note:

The CDA makes this information available from their website at www.cda-adc.ca. They have resources for your dental career,
http://www.cda-adc.ca/en/dental_profession/index.asp, and for members they have additional resources at the CDA Resource Centre at http://www.cda-adc.ca/en/members/login.asp or try
http://www.cda-adc.ca/en/members/resource/research/index.asp.

The American Dental Association keeps demographic information too. However the smallest area they cover is by county, not by city. They also have a large state and regional report called the Distribution of Dentists. These materials are available for a fee from their catalog department at www.adacatalog.org or https://siebel.ada.org/ecustomer_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=Start. Also you can go to the ADA home page, www.ada.org, and there, in the middle of the page is a link on Survey Research for Dentistry, or http://www.ada.org/ada/prod/survey/index.asp. Here you can find the free resource of FAQs at http://www.ada.org/ada/prod/survey/faq.asp.