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- Jul 22, 2012
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Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone had any words of advice for a young dentist who tends to fall into frequent episodes of anxiety?
I always tend to have internal mental battles between feeling pressure from the office managers wanting production (keep in mind, in a high volume medicaid/PPO office). High production is encouraged while also pushing for perfection in patient treatment/staying on schedule/high quality work, etc..
The realities? It's very difficult to maintain all those standards simultaneously while working in a quick environment. I've never understood how I'm supposed to do fillings while having a simultaneous exam with scaling. Sure, you can numb the filling patient and jump to go do the exam, but what do you do if that new exam patient you "popped in for" requires 5+ crowns, 3+ root canals, 6+ fillings, implant/bridge/partials and that patient with the fillings is waiting in the other room? Obviously it will take time to explain this to the patient and if he has various questions you're basically screwed and falling behind with the fillings you still need to get started on. If it was a teenager with no cavities? Easy. Unfortunately, that "no-issue" patient is a rare diamond in this practice. This model just seems so broken. It's nice to make money but how do people maintain sanity when this is a day-to-day for years and years?
This is just an example, but you can imagine many things going wrong - crown not fitting, calcified canal, pt who doesn't get numb, etc. while having patients on your 2nd and 3rd columns for denture try-in's, a crown delivery.. etc. One thing that goes wrong can trigger a domino effect and just like that, you're behind and patients who had appts. are getting inpatient... not just that, but the crown that didn't fit is now a loss in production and frowned upon by management.
These scenario's make me really anxious just thinking about them. Not just that but for some reason I also get really anxious thinking about malpractice suits (especially in this type of work environment). One of my friends got sued because his patient's gum got an ulcer after a whitening. That can literally happen to anyone and I think it's just a ticking time bomb for something to go wrong. Since I feel like I have a long ways ahead of me career-wise, I'm trying really hard to not screw anything up right now that i'm starting. On some patient's, I write clinical notes the length of college essays (exaggerating) because I felt something off about them. Little things like that..
Speaking on a more personal note, I do the "recommended stuff"- a lot of exercise, 8 hours of sleep. I've been at this for two years and the anxiety has only maybe gotten a little better since I've gotten used to the grind. I don't remember ever having had conversations with myself about "why did I study this?" during school. I've only had these thoughts since I started working in this environment full time. When I take vacation's, I don't feel like going back to work.. and I turned from this super nice and caring guy to a "i'm not taking crap" kind of dude.. This work environment takes its toll on one. How do you deal with this?
I always tend to have internal mental battles between feeling pressure from the office managers wanting production (keep in mind, in a high volume medicaid/PPO office). High production is encouraged while also pushing for perfection in patient treatment/staying on schedule/high quality work, etc..
The realities? It's very difficult to maintain all those standards simultaneously while working in a quick environment. I've never understood how I'm supposed to do fillings while having a simultaneous exam with scaling. Sure, you can numb the filling patient and jump to go do the exam, but what do you do if that new exam patient you "popped in for" requires 5+ crowns, 3+ root canals, 6+ fillings, implant/bridge/partials and that patient with the fillings is waiting in the other room? Obviously it will take time to explain this to the patient and if he has various questions you're basically screwed and falling behind with the fillings you still need to get started on. If it was a teenager with no cavities? Easy. Unfortunately, that "no-issue" patient is a rare diamond in this practice. This model just seems so broken. It's nice to make money but how do people maintain sanity when this is a day-to-day for years and years?
This is just an example, but you can imagine many things going wrong - crown not fitting, calcified canal, pt who doesn't get numb, etc. while having patients on your 2nd and 3rd columns for denture try-in's, a crown delivery.. etc. One thing that goes wrong can trigger a domino effect and just like that, you're behind and patients who had appts. are getting inpatient... not just that, but the crown that didn't fit is now a loss in production and frowned upon by management.
These scenario's make me really anxious just thinking about them. Not just that but for some reason I also get really anxious thinking about malpractice suits (especially in this type of work environment). One of my friends got sued because his patient's gum got an ulcer after a whitening. That can literally happen to anyone and I think it's just a ticking time bomb for something to go wrong. Since I feel like I have a long ways ahead of me career-wise, I'm trying really hard to not screw anything up right now that i'm starting. On some patient's, I write clinical notes the length of college essays (exaggerating) because I felt something off about them. Little things like that..
Speaking on a more personal note, I do the "recommended stuff"- a lot of exercise, 8 hours of sleep. I've been at this for two years and the anxiety has only maybe gotten a little better since I've gotten used to the grind. I don't remember ever having had conversations with myself about "why did I study this?" during school. I've only had these thoughts since I started working in this environment full time. When I take vacation's, I don't feel like going back to work.. and I turned from this super nice and caring guy to a "i'm not taking crap" kind of dude.. This work environment takes its toll on one. How do you deal with this?
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