Illustration by Bob Scott
As a wife and the mother of a 2-year-old son, Emily Sinclair of River Run Dental enjoys having some certainty in her schedule.
She knows she’ll get home each day around 4 p.m. She knows she’s off on Tuesdays and on weekends. In the event of a personal emergency, one of her associates — dentists Alexa Vinson, Molly Adler, or River Run Dental founder Brent Rusnak — can cover for her.
“The dentistry field really allows you to have a good work-life balance,” Sinclair says. “Having a set schedule is one of the nicest things.”
For Sinclair and others, the relaxed lifestyle associated with dentistry is a reason why the field has become a popular career choice for women. In fact, more women are becoming dentists than ever before.
“I can’t think of any other career where I could open my own practice and start a family at once." —Autumn Mayers, Allgood Family Dentisty
According to the American Dental Association, 29 percent of American dentists in 2016 were women, a sharp uptick from 16 percent women dentists in 2001. Their numbers are likely to continue to increase dramatically: While only 15.9 percent of first-year dental students were women in 1978, the number climbed to 48.8 percent in 2015, according to the ADA.
Women accounted for 53.6 percent of first-year students at Virginia Commonwealth University’s dental school in 2012-13, but the number dropped for the 2015-16 class to 37.9 percent. VCU School of Dentistry Assistant Dean for Admissions Dr. Riki Gottlieb notes that the class of 2020 could be the next class with a majority of female graduates.
VCU graduated its first class with more female than male dental students in 2015. Vinson was one of them; she chose to remain in Richmond to start her career. “Richmond is just a great city, and a lot of people who move here for dental school tend to never leave because there are so many opportunities and the community is so supportive,” she says.
Characteristics of the Job
The personalized, nurturing nature of dentistry appeals to many women. “It’s a very social job where we get to interact with new people every day, and you end up forming strong relationships with patients and their families that can last years,” Adler says. “I think that’s something women love; that there’s a very personal feel to the work we do.”
Unlike working in a physician’s office or a hospital, dentists rarely have to be the bearer of life-altering news to their patients, nor must they deal with emergencies on a regular basis.
“Dentistry is all about prevention, so it’s not like we’re in the emergency room dealing with horrible crises,” Adler says. “We do occasionally help people get rid of pain, but most of the time, we’re working to prevent the pain from happening in the first place.”
The dentists speculate that another reason for the shift could be that the field requires meticulous, detail-oriented individuals who can be successful at performing intricate, technical procedures. “You have to have a certain personality type, and women tend to possess the artistry and the attention to detail that it takes to perform these procedures,” Adler says. “It’s a skill not everyone has.”
Dr. Autumn Mayers with patient Rommel Penaranda (Photo by Megan Irwin)
Many recent graduates tend to join a group, associateship or corporate dental practice model to avoid the added financial burden of establishing a solo practice. And yet, the appeal is there to open a practice of your own. It’s something that twin sisters and dentists Ashlyn Price and Autumn Mayers know about first-hand. The sisters, who graduated with Vinson in 2015 from VCU, have a practice in Midlothian, Allgood Family Dentistry.
“Dentistry allows a lot of freedom to begin with, but opening up your own business allows even more freedom,” says Mayers. “We don’t work for anyone else — we work for ourselves and set our own schedules, and we decide how our business is run. It’s really empowering.”
She and her sister are both mothers to young children, and they feel fortunate to be in a career where they can maintain family life. “I can’t think of any other career where I could open my own practice and start a family at once,” she says. “It’s a challenge and our business is still growing, but the field itself has made this possible for us.”
Adler says that the increase in female dentists presents a number of benefits for the field, especially in combating patient fears that she believes began with older generations. “When our parents talk about going to the dentist, there is often a lot of fear that surrounds it,” she says. “I think women can help make visits less scary. I think it’ll become a gentler, softer experience.”
Mayers points out that the gender shift will be nothing if not positive for patients, who she says often ask specifically to be seen by female dentists anyway. “So many people call the office and say, ‘as long as I’m seen by a woman, I don’t care who it is,’” she says. “I guess it’s because women can be seen as more nurturing and comforting. But regardless, people are really looking for female dentists, and I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon.”
