I agree with the above regarding education but would characterize residency as, in fact, 1.5 - 2 full time jobs. I do agree that graduating from medical school, most of my peers didn't have full time jobs other than studying, which pays -$40k. Some had part-time.
Didn't know that dentistry pays so poorly compared to medicine and has higher debt. That sounds bad.
Yes, I wasn't really counting residency. The dentists often don't have paid residencies, they usually pay an extra couple hundred grand to become specialists.
I don't know if dentistry has higher debt than medicine, I just know it's a lot higher than the 200K quoted above, especially for specialists where it's a few times that. I've seen a lot of US orthodontists with close to 7 figures or debt.
Dentistry is also very over saturated in a lot of areas, so it can take a long time to build enough clientele to consistently be busy.
I do find that the doctors I've worked with generally tend to be a little better with money than the dentists, because they get used to residency income. Having had a lower paying, full time job really does make a huge difference for perception of money.
The dentists who go from 0-60 financially tend to be more discombobulated by it.
ETA: incidentally, I previously thought I was responding to the anti-mustachian thread about two high spending dentists, which is why I focused so much on dentistry. Oops.