Salary
Average Salary: $220,000
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $9,184,560
Compared to an oral surgeon, a tooth fairy gets a bad deal. One dollar for one tooth? Puh-lease. You get paid more than 100 times that amount to take care of a kid's tooth.
Oral surgeons make a handsome salary: $220,000 per year, on average (source). Not enough for you? Annual mean wages are highest (in the $238,000-$257,000 bracket) in Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Indiana, Utah, and Massachusetts. Steer clear of Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, and New Jersey, where oral surgeons only make between $132,000-$195,000 (source).
Though there aren't necessarily great opportunities for career advancement (as an oral surgeon, you're kinda top dog already), you can nonetheless expect to enjoy an extra $40,000 by the end of your career. Oral surgeons with more than twenty years of experience take an average $265,000.
The pot gets sweeter. More than eighty percent of oral surgeons have medical coverage, but only half have dental coverage themselves (source). Because who needs dental coverage when you have a degree in dentistry?