17,000 Dentists Entered the Placement Draw, 521 Were Appointed: Graduates Working as Servers

Unplanned growth of dental faculties in Türkiye is leaving graduates without work. 17,000 dentists applied for the Health Ministry's 2026 first-term placement draw; the Ministry appointed only 521 people to positions. Thousands of dentists excluded from the draw are applying to private clinics; when they find positions, they are offered monthly salaries of 30,000–35,000 lira — nearly equivalent to the minimum wage. Some are forced to work on commission.

Esra Yıldız, who graduated from Karadeniz Technical University's Faculty of Dentistry a few months ago, says not a single job opening appeared in Trabzon where she lives. After sending CVs to approximately 70 clinics in Istanbul and receiving no responses to applications for dental assistant and on-call positions, Yıldız began working as a server at minimum wage to avoid being a burden on her family. Yıldız, who says "nobody believes I'm unemployed," represents a snapshot of the broader situation facing young dentists across Türkiye, as highlighted in reporting by Diken.

The problem is multifaceted. Graduates who want to open private clinics face not only high rent and equipment costs but also lengthy bureaucratic processes. Dental faculties that multiplied rapidly in the 2000s have produced graduate numbers far exceeding public sector capacity; to this day, the Health Ministry has not responded to this situation with systematic capacity planning. This is not the first placement draw in which faculty intake quotas have gone unreviewed — a pattern stretching back a decade.