MBBS vs BDS: Salary, Career Path & 10-Year Reality

You cleared NEET. Your family is thrilled. “Doctor banega/banegi!” But now comes the fork in the road: MBBS or BDS? Both put “Dr.” before your name. Both involve patients, white coats, and years of grinding. But the journeys they lead to are so different that choosing without understanding the timeline is a mistake you’ll feel for decades.

Let’s walk through both paths, year by year.

Year 0: The Admission Decision (and the Money Question)

Before a single lecture begins, the financial gap is already massive.

Government MBBS costs ₹25,000 to ₹5 lakh total depending on your state. Government BDS is even cheaper — ₹15,000 to ₹3 lakh. At this level, the choice is purely academic preference.

But most students don’t get government seats. Private MBBS runs ₹50 lakh to ₹1.2 crore. Private BDS is ₹15-50 lakh. The gap is staggering. Many families face this exact scenario: a government BDS seat or a private MBBS seat at ₹75 lakh with an education loan.

That ₹70+ lakh difference isn’t just money. It’s the capital that could later fund a dental clinic, an MDS degree, or three years of living expenses while you build a practice. Keep this number in your head as we move forward.

Years 1-2: The Classroom Phase

Both MBBS and BDS students study anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry in the first year. The subjects overlap significantly — you’re in the same dissection halls, sometimes literally in the same college.

By second year, paths split. MBBS dives deeper into pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, and forensic medicine. BDS shifts toward dental anatomy, dental materials, and pre-clinical prosthodontics. You start practising on mannequins before you ever touch a patient.

The workload is heavy in both. But MBBS students generally face more volume — more subjects, more exams, more clinical rotations starting earlier.

Years 3-4: Clinical Exposure Begins

MBBS students rotate through medicine, surgery, paediatrics, OB-GYN, orthopaedics, ENT, ophthalmology, and psychiatry. You’re in wards, OTs, emergency rooms. You see trauma, chronic illness, deliveries, and death. The emotional weight starts building here.

BDS students enter clinics too — but the nature is different. You’re doing extractions, fillings, root canals, and impressions. Your patients walk in and walk out the same day. Emergencies are rare. The procedures are planned, not reactive. The stress exists, but it’s a fundamentally different kind.

This difference in clinical culture shapes your entire professional personality. MBBS trains you for chaos. BDS trains you for precision.

Year 5: Internship

MBBS internship lasts 12 months across departments. Long hours are the norm — 36-hour shifts during surgical postings, night duties in casualty, the full grind. You earn a stipend of ₹15,000-₹30,000 per month depending on the state. Sleep deprivation becomes a personality trait.

BDS internship is also 12 months but almost entirely within dental departments. Hours are more predictable — roughly 9 AM to 5 PM. Stipends are similar or sometimes lower. But you’re sleeping in your own bed most nights.

Year 5.5-6: The PG Decision Point

This is where careers truly diverge.

MBBS graduates face NEET PG — over 2 lakh candidates fighting for roughly 45,000 seats. Getting a clinical specialty like Dermatology, Radiology, or Surgery at a government college requires a rank in the top few thousand. Many students take 2-3 attempts. Some spend years in the PG preparation loop, earning almost nothing.

BDS graduates write NEET MDS. The competition is real — Orthodontics and Prosthodontics are cutthroat — but the overall applicant-to-seat ratio is more forgiving. You’re more likely to get a PG seat in fewer attempts.

Here’s the trade-off though: an MD/MS opens doors across hospitals, private practice, research, and even non-clinical roles. An MDS largely keeps you within dental practice. The career flexibility of MBBS post-PG is genuinely broader.

Years 7-10: Building a Career

A freshly minted MD/MS specialist joining a metro hospital earns ₹1.5-4 lakh per month. Surgical specialties and procedure-heavy fields pay more. You’re still working brutal hours — on-call duties, weekend rounds, patient emergencies at midnight. But the income curve is steep.

An MDS graduate has two main options: join an established dental clinic as a consultant (₹70,000-₹1.5 lakh per month) or set up their own practice. Setting up a basic dental clinic costs ₹15-30 lakh — dental chair, RVG, instruments, interiors, rent. In a saturated metro city, building a patient base from scratch means 2-3 years of barely breaking even. In tier-2 cities and smaller towns, the ramp-up is faster.

The lifestyle difference is sharp. The MBBS specialist is earning more but burning out. The dentist is earning less but going home at 7 PM and taking Sundays off.

Years 10-20: Peak Earnings and the Saturation Reality

Senior MBBS specialists — cardiologists, dermatologists, orthopaedic surgeons — earn ₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore+ per year. The ceiling is genuinely high. Even mid-tier specialists in metro areas clear ₹30-50 lakh comfortably.

Dentists with established practices in good locations earn ₹25-60 lakh annually. Cosmetic dentistry and implant specialists in Mumbai or Delhi sometimes cross ₹1 crore, but they’re outliers. The average is solid but clearly lower than MBBS peak earnings.

And here’s the saturation problem BDS faces: India produces 25,000+ BDS graduates every year from 300+ dental colleges. In cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Pune, dental clinics outnumber medical stores on some streets. Urban saturation is real. Smart location choices — tier-2 towns like Ujjain, Salem, or Warangal — can make a massive difference.

The Honest Calculation

If you have a government MBBS seat, take it. The career breadth, earning ceiling, and professional respect are hard to match.

If your choice is between a private MBBS seat at ₹80 lakh and a government BDS seat at ₹2 lakh, the math changes completely. That ₹78 lakh saved can fund an MDS, a clinic setup, and years of financial runway. A smart BDS graduate with zero debt will often be in a better position at age 35 than an MBBS graduate still paying off education loans.

If work-life balance matters to you deeply, BDS offers something MBBS structurally cannot — especially in the first 15 years.

But never pick BDS as “MBBS ka backup” without any interest in dentistry. Five years of studying oral pathology and carving wax teeth is genuinely punishing if your heart isn’t in it. That resentment follows you into your career.

Both paths make you a doctor. They just make you very different kinds of doctors living very different kinds of lives. Choose based on the life you want at 35, not the title you want at 23.