Survey shows recent Canadian dental graduates taking longer to set up practices
Based on tracking a long-term trend, recent Canadian dental graduates appear to be taking longer to set up their practices than those who graduated in past decades, according to results from the DIAC (Dental Industry Association of Canada) Seventeenth Annual Future of Dentistry Survey.
While in the past (based on responses from those with 16 or more years in practice), the vast majority of these earlier dentists first set up in practice within the first three years, this percentage for newer graduates (0-3 years) has been dropping steadily since 2008 from around 40% at that time to 22% in 2011, 18% in 2012, and 11% in 2013.
As might be expected, there has also been a movement to later set-up with those who graduated four to nine years ago as well, although a far higher percentage of this group were able to set up in their first three years after their graduation. As we move up the scale in terms of years in practice, we see that noticeably higher percentages of these “older” groups were able to set up their own practice within three years of actually joining the profession (culminating with 50 to 65% of those who have more than 20 years in dentistry being able to set up within three years of their graduation).
While it is not certain exactly why this has happened, it may be extrapolated that this has been a function of the recent poor economy’s impact on patient loads combined with the rising costs of education and practice set-up. Perhaps in conjunction with this delay in practice start-up, there is a decline in sole practitioners (37% versus 44%) over the past five years, matched by an increase in practices with one additional dentist (32% versus 26%) and larger practices with four or more dentists (8.9% versus 5.9%). There has also been a subtle movement to practices with greater numbers of operatories. Both may well be a function of shared expenses or as an exit strategy for the older dentist.
Almost 1,000 practicing Canadian dentists responded to this year’s survey (similar to the response achieved over each of the previous fifteen years) with a good proportional distribution across all regions of the country. Based on this response rate, overall 2012 survey results have an accuracy of +/- 3.08% 19 times out of 20.
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