There’s no one way to be a dentist.

Nothing much good comes from dental facebook groups. I recently popped into  a dental facebook group and noticed a dentist questioning Dr Kyle Stanley’s validity in promoting his courses that deal with burnout and mental health issues.

Wanting to know how many cases he was treating , wanting to see his numbers. That only those still providing full time clinic care, on the tools full time, would be in a position to offer others advice.

There was a bit of a pile on. There was  a colleague defending him.

I don’t know much about Dr Kyle, he has white teeth, an expensive car, and seems to talk mainly about the emotional challenges of being a dentist as well as promoting Pearl AI. I think all of that is valid. It's his life after all.

I’m not sure why he has to be doing full mouth rehabs, working 40 hours a week on the tools or whatever, in order to be able to talk about burnout. If you weren’t on the tools then you were not qualified.

Burnout will look different to each and every one of us and how we experience our profession.Our day to day is entirely personal and unique to us.

We will each have different limits or what we can cope with and this will vary from day to day, week to week and year on year.

A recent paper from University of Melbourne cited that 16% of dentists had experienced thoughts of suicide in the previous. One third had experienced psychological distress.

24% classified as likely to be experiencing burnout.

Maybe American dentists are more resilient? Unlikely.

We see a lot of bravado, of doing more and doing more complex work. Some of this starts as early as dental school. Afterall, we had to compete for that place. It can be in our nature.

There’s no one way to be a dentist.

You need to have enough of you left at the end of each day for you to be you and enjoy your life. Or what is the point?

Find your level, enjoy what you do and be the best you can at it.

I think we should be thankful there are dentists such as Dr Kyle Stanley  speaking up about the challenges and providing opportunities for dentists to learn to manage their life outside the surgery.

Have a great week and be kind to yourself.

Rosie

If you are feeling in the need of support there are resources such as Dental Practitioner Support who can help.