Henry, There are pluses and minuses to dentistry, as in all careers. First, dentistry is NOT a low-stress job. It's a fact that dentists have the highest suicide rate. Also, don't expect to start at 200K as you may think. You need to build a practice and if your lucky to purchase an established one, you may lose patients. A lot of $$$ goes into equipment, overhead and staff. The best advice I could give you would be to shadow a dentist, and ask him/her any questions you may have about building a practice. Also, if it's the big bucks you're looking for, you should consider specializing in ortho or perio.