Six little words

As Christmas aproached in the UK there was an ad campaign on TV, ”A puppy is not just for Chrstmas”.

This can apply to all manner of things.

As a dentist, the words I NEVER want to hear are…

“I wish I had never done this!”

Whether its a crown, veneers, repairing worn teeth, or having teeth removed and a denture built…

There’s been a bit in the newspapers recently about buyer’s remorse when it comes to cosmetic procedures.

How do we avoid this when there’s a lot of focus these days on promoting high production work to patients.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying helping people rehabilitate their smile is a bad thing, but there’s a danger that when we are surrounded by labs, social media and dental suppliers all promoting this type of work to dentists, we may begin to feel that this is the norm and that we’re fatimeling behind if we’re not keeping up.

I was lucky. I matured as a dentist in a time before social media.

A time when dentists were the profession and the dental industry were the people who provided us with the tools and product we needed.

These days you rarely hear the term dental profession. As a profession, we now seem to identify as the “dental industry”. I’m not sure that that is a good thing.

It used to be that courses were organised by speicalists or dental associations. Now we attend courses organised and subsidised by the indsutry, labs, suppliers or manufactuers.

The risk for young dentists is that they feel pressure to run before they can walk. They can get wrapped up in the need to be doing what they think their peers are doing. Whether it’s injectable composites, injectable injectables, complex smile design treatment plans or clear aligners.

We attend courses and learn how to promote treatments to patients. The risk is that we may end up better at selling the treatment than we are completing the treatment in a durable, safe and conservative manner.

With a shift in the profession away from small practice ownership the sense of personal responsibility that densists have towards their patients is at risk.

It’s important we practice our dentistry with a long term view. There’s nothing more humbling or beneficial that seeing your work three years, ten years or twenty years down the track.

Patients aren’t a course of treatment; they trust us to take care of them and act in their best interest. We are healthcare providers after all.

The industry salesman, or the guy from the lab, will not be looking that patient in the eye when the patient utters those words “I wish I’d never done this”.

As always, thanks for reading, you can help me grow this newsletter by sharing with a friend of colleague

Rosie