This is going to sound crazy...debating dropping out of dental school

[MAFLOH]

Hi all,

This is very hard for me to get off my chest but I am going to do so because it is eating me up inside. I have just started my fourth year of dental school and I am not sure I can go on much longer. Looking at me you would think everything is going well...I've yet to fail a single class, passed all my clinicals, and made it to fourth year. The thing that's eating me up inside is that every day and every appointment I spend treating patients, I am constantly uneasy. I sometimes deal with tremors, shakiness (in my hands), and despite appearing confident in the way I speak, I am unconfident that my body will respond the way I want it to. I'm prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to stop my shaky hands, but I am worried as to how long it can remain effective. I can't imagine myself doing this profession and working on patients 5-6 days a week. I am highly intelligent and well-motivated, but the whole thought of continuing to work with my hands and have a constant battle my insecurities regarding my motor skills day after day is eating me up inside. At this very moment I am 300K in debt and I am sure that all my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me up if I ever do this, however I see myself much happier and more content with life becoming a family doctor or pharmacist, a profession that deals with patient interaction but is not so "hands-on" What do you guys think?

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[Incis0r]

Hi all,

This is very hard for me to get off my chest but I am going to do so because it is eating me up inside. I have just started my fourth year of dental school and I am not sure I can go on much longer. Looking at me you would think everything is going well...I've yet to fail a single class, passed all my clinicals, and made it to fourth year. The thing that's eating me up inside is that every day and every appointment I spend treating patients, I am constantly uneasy. I sometimes deal with tremors, shakiness (in my hands), and despite appearing confident in the way I speak, I am unconfident that my body will respond the way I want it to. I'm prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to stop my shaky hands, but I am worried as to how long it can remain effective. I can't imagine myself doing this profession and working on patients 5-6 days a week. I am highly intelligent and well-motivated, but the whole thought of continuing to work with my hands and have a constant battle my insecurities regarding my motor skills day after day is eating me up inside. At this very moment I am 300K in debt and I am sure that all my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me up if I ever do this, however I see myself much happier and more content with life becoming a family doctor or pharmacist, a profession that deals with patient interaction but is not so "hands-on" What do you guys think?

I wouldn't drop out if I were you. If things are extreme, then consider a leave of absence, but do not drop out. During your leave, figure out the tremors/shakiness situation.

Furthermore, while it's difficult, you can pursue non-"hands-on" options in dentistry. Some of my didactic instructors are dentists. Certain specialties are more hands-off as well.

Also, don't assume you're going to see patients 6 days a week. Maybe consider starting part-time? Enough so that you're getting decent cash flow and can service your loans yet not stressing yourself out?

 

[Moose A Moose]

Damn. This is a tough one, OP. First: forget about your family and friends in this dilemma. We gotta make this one about you.

That being said, I think you should finish out dental school. This doesn’t go to say you should practice, but finish it out. Dropping out will be a huge red flag. I think you’d get more kudos for finishing out and then applying for med or pharm school.

Either way, you’re gonna have massive debt and you need to think this one out. First step: just finish. You’re already deep enough in the hole.

 

[Saddleshoes]

Once you get out of the pressure cooker, known as dental school, you may find all your anxiety disappears.

 

[kingme23]

Why not finish and go into a hands off role like someone mentioned? Public health, research, pathology, radiology. Our school is begging for new faculty and they are pretty hands off. You have plenty of options, just have to think outside the box a little.

 

[2TH MVR]

I echo whats been said above. Finish school and look into academics. You're almost there. Don't give up all that you've accomplished.

 

[Greyangel6]

Agreed with above posts. There are other areas of dentistry that do not require much of working with your hands once you graduate. Even some orthodontists admitted to me they forgot how to do restorations or crowns haha. I'm also a D4. I had been so fed up with a lot of the dental school stuff (how slow things go, how miserable I was trying to please the patient and faculty at the same time, etc.). Sometimes I feel like I do most of my learning out side of the school clinic (we have student-run dental clinics that faculties can cover as part of community service, we have external rotations where there are actual dental assistants + we see 8-10 patients a day). I still have a lot of anxiety when I get back to the school clinic because there's a need to prove myself, to fulfill requirements to graduate, etc... But I'm taking it one step at a time haha

 

[charlestweed]

With the current 300k debt, you are pretty much at the point of no return. There are very few good paying jobs that help you deal with such enormous debt amount and don't require a professional degree. Pharmacy is not an option because you won't get paid enough + you have to take out at least $200k more to obtain a pharmD degree. Medicine?....maybe if you specialize.

Are you single right now? If yes, I think it'll be hard to meet someone when he or she knows that you have $300+k debt. You wouldn't want to be a burden to your significant other or to your other family members, would you? You need to deal with the problem head-on.

Being intelligent is not enough. I've seen many smart people who graduated from Stanford, MIT, Princeton quit their jobs and went back to study dentistry and medicine. Picking the right career and hard work are very important.

 

[deleted659902]

Agreed with other posters in that you should finish and look into less hands-on specialties, especially pathology (the most cerebral and hands-off field of dentistry imo) and orthodontics.

 

[ncide]

It does sound crazy. And it is.

Finish school.

Life outside school is much better.

 

[Faux]

Damn. This is a tough one, OP. First: forget about your family and friends in this dilemma. We gotta make this one about you.

That being said, I think you should finish out dental school. This doesn’t go to say you should practice, but finish it out. Dropping out will be a huge red flag. I think you’d get more kudos for finishing out and then applying for med or pharm school.

Either way, you’re gonna have massive debt and you need to think this one out. First step: just finish. You’re already deep enough in the hole.

.


+ talk to a therapist/psychiatrist. The issues you're describing will bleed into other aspects of your life.

 

[Str82th]

I’m not even going to read the other responses. Bet they are along the similar line as this...

If you drop out now it will be a worse decision than entering dental school. You will have worked four long, hard years and will have NOTHING to show for it, except for a negative net worh of 300 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

Nough tough love. There are a lot of things you can do with a dental DEGREE that don’t require a large amount or patient interaction- pathology (non-clinical), radiology, you could be a consultant, sales, management at some DSO, faculty, etc.

Don’t stop now, you’ve come too far.

 

[InformMe123]

You made it this far so you can do this! I think with time you will get more used to it, get better at the hand skills, become more confident and less worrying about making mistake.

 

[LFA20]

Hi all,

This is very hard for me to get off my chest but I am going to do so because it is eating me up inside. I have just started my fourth year of dental school and I am not sure I can go on much longer. Looking at me you would think everything is going well...I've yet to fail a single class, passed all my clinicals, and made it to fourth year. The thing that's eating me up inside is that every day and every appointment I spend treating patients, I am constantly uneasy. I sometimes deal with tremors, shakiness (in my hands), and despite appearing confident in the way I speak, I am unconfident that my body will respond the way I want it to. I'm prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to stop my shaky hands, but I am worried as to how long it can remain effective. I can't imagine myself doing this profession and working on patients 5-6 days a week. I am highly intelligent and well-motivated, but the whole thought of continuing to work with my hands and have a constant battle my insecurities regarding my motor skills day after day is eating me up inside. At this very moment I am 300K in debt and I am sure that all my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me up if I ever do this, however I see myself much happier and more content with life becoming a family doctor or pharmacist, a profession that deals with patient interaction but is not so "hands-on" What do you guys think?

I’m not even gonna read the rest of your thread after knowing you are a fourth year.

Suck it up and graduate

 

[TanMan]

Hi all,

This is very hard for me to get off my chest but I am going to do so because it is eating me up inside. I have just started my fourth year of dental school and I am not sure I can go on much longer. Looking at me you would think everything is going well...I've yet to fail a single class, passed all my clinicals, and made it to fourth year. The thing that's eating me up inside is that every day and every appointment I spend treating patients, I am constantly uneasy. I sometimes deal with tremors, shakiness (in my hands), and despite appearing confident in the way I speak, I am unconfident that my body will respond the way I want it to. I'm prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to stop my shaky hands, but I am worried as to how long it can remain effective. I can't imagine myself doing this profession and working on patients 5-6 days a week. I am highly intelligent and well-motivated, but the whole thought of continuing to work with my hands and have a constant battle my insecurities regarding my motor skills day after day is eating me up inside. At this very moment I am 300K in debt and I am sure that all my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me up if I ever do this, however I see myself much happier and more content with life becoming a family doctor or pharmacist, a profession that deals with patient interaction but is not so "hands-on" What do you guys think?

Not so big secret of dentistry: Your hand skills aren't as important as you think... what's more important is talking to people. If you can talk to people, you'll do well in dentistry. However, if you talk to your patients with the same insecurities underlined in your post, then you need to work on talking to your patients.

There's only one reason I can think of that you can walk away from this without major consequences to your life. If your family, benefactor, spouse, or someone who cares enough about you to bail you out is rich enough to absorb your student loans, then quit now and seek happiness elsewhere. Otherwise, you're in very deep in a professional school that has plenty of potential to get out of debt. Have you considered just sucking it up, graduate, make tons of money and retire? If you live to only be 50, you've wasted 6% (3 years of your life already), do you want to waste/utilize another 8-20% of your life going to another profession?

 

[aggie-master]

I think you should stay in school.

Your hand problems might go away once the anxiety from school is in the past. I had extreme test anxiety in the hand skills classes and clinical exams caused in part by my struggles with the pre-clinic hand skills classes(barely failed pre-clinic operative lab and had to repeat second year). I was always worried about being good enough with everything I did in clinic.

I even got shaky hands on my first filling after getting my license. Now, with six years of experience hand skills are the least of my concern. Most of the things I do have become routine for me after doing thousands and thousands of procedures. I still run into things that are challenging on occasion but I don’t feel all that pressure that I felt in dental school.

Most of the stress of the job comes from dealing with problem patients, dealing with staff, and running a business.

 

[DentistScientist]

Why not finish and go into a hands off role like someone mentioned? Public health, research, pathology, radiology. Our school is begging for new faculty and they are pretty hands off. You have plenty of options, just have to think outside the box a little.

What school do you go to? Mind sharing the state at least? Thank you..


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[kingme23]

What school do you go to? Mind sharing the state at least? Thank you..


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

About an hr north of your username

Not so big secret of dentistry: Your hand skills aren't as important as you think... what's more important is talking to people. If you can talk to people, you'll do well in dentistry. However, if you talk to your patients with the same insecurities underlined in your post, then you need to work on talking to your patients.

There's only one reason I can think of that you can walk away from this without major consequences to your life. If your family, benefactor, spouse, or someone who cares enough about you to bail you out is rich enough to absorb your student loans, then quit now and seek happiness elsewhere. Otherwise, you're in very deep in a professional school that has plenty of potential to get out of debt. Have you considered just sucking it up, graduate, make tons of money and retire? If you live to only be 50, you've wasted 6% (3 years of your life already), do you want to waste/utilize another 8-20% of your life going to another profession?

Point well made but the life expectancy is well above 50 these days

 

[doc toothache]

Hi all, This is very hard for me to get off my chest but I am going to do so because it is eating me up inside. I have just started my fourth year of dental school and I am not sure I can go on much longer. Looking at me you would think everything is going well...I've yet to fail a single class, passed all my clinicals, and made it to fourth year. The thing that's eating me up inside is that every day and every appointment I spend treating patients, I am constantly uneasy. I sometimes deal with tremors, shakiness (in my hands), and despite appearing confident in the way I speak, I am unconfident that my body will respond the way I want it to. I'm prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to stop my shaky hands, but I am worried as to how long it can remain effective. I can't imagine myself doing this profession and working on patients 5-6 days a week. I am highly intelligent and well-motivated, but the whole thought of continuing to work with my hands and have a constant battle my insecurities regarding my motor skills day after day is eating me up inside. At this very moment I am 300K in debt and I am sure that all my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me up if I ever do this, however I see myself much happier and more content with life becoming a family doctor or pharmacist, a profession that deals with patient interaction but is not so "hands-on" What do you guys think?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Or is it?

 

[yappy]

How unhappy life must be to view edifying thing like work and school as "wasting" some percentage of life. I feel for you, @TanMan

OP, I would not drop out if I were in your shoes. You're already this far in. You have nothing to lose by finishing.

 

[TanMan]

About an hr north of your username



Point well made but the life expectancy is well above 50 these days

True, but where would you define quality of life declining physically and mentally? Even if we live to be 60, 70, 80, etc... I don't think we can say that we're as good in our 60's than we were in our 50's, compared to the 40's and so on... Even if were to say that 3 years was not 6% of our overall lifespan, it may be more fair to say that it is 6% of our peak/prime years.

How unhappy life must be to view edifying thing like work and school as "wasting" some percentage of life. I feel for you, @TanMan

OP, I would not drop out if I were in your shoes. You're already this far in. You have nothing to lose by finishing.

It is definitely very sad to think that we have to spend a large proportion of our lifespan in order to make money (for survival and creature comforts). We'll never get those years of schooling back and all for the idea that we're going to work/become functional members of society until the day we die or become incapable of functioning in any work related capacity. What I hope to accomplish with my philosophy, and advocate to others, is to take money out of the equation; unfortunately, to survive, we need money. If I don't have to worry about money, then I don't need to work because I have to, but because I want to (work becomes optional). I see that as a heavy burden off my shoulders in that I don't have to worry about survival and that's where true freedom lies (or at least more freedom, depending on your social situation).

Anyway, I digress. We'll never get our peak years back. I don't want to work for the rest of my life because I have to, but because I want to. This is something that the OP should think about as well. Does the ends justify the means? In dentistry, I believe so, because it gets you to at least one endpoint... the financial endpoint and necessity of modern life (money). Solve that problem and you can spend the rest of your life in the pursuit of happiness and state of contentment(eudaimonia).

 

[2TH MVR]

It's all about perspective. When you are young (OP ... late 20's???) you probably don't spend much of your day thinking about your future longevity, retirement, or lost income. I know I didn't. Life is all about the present. This is typical of most young people. In their minds they have their entire life in front of them. Plenty of time to change course.

Older dentists have been there. Done that. Made mistakes. To many of us ... what the OP is possibly considering is crazy because most of us know how hard it is to be accepted to DS, finance and finish paying off your DS loans, finance a practice, fund your retirement, and most important of all .... live LIFE.

Success is measured differently for many people.

It would be interesting to hear what the OP has decided.

 

[yappy]

It is definitely very sad to think that we have to spend a large proportion of our lifespan in order to make money (for survival and creature comforts). We'll never get those years of schooling back and all for the idea that we're going to work/become functional members of society until the day we die or become incapable of functioning in any work related capacity. What I hope to accomplish with my philosophy, and advocate to others, is to take money out of the equation; unfortunately, to survive, we need money. If I don't have to worry about money, then I don't need to work because I have to, but because I want to (work becomes optional). I see that as a heavy burden off my shoulders in that I don't have to worry about survival and that's where true freedom lies (or at least more freedom, depending on your social situation).QUOTE]

I agree with being wise and efficient with resources. I cannot agree that time spent at work or in school was a "waste" for me. I felt very fulfilled. I like having a challenge. A vocation has been neccessan for me to have a full life.

 

[TanMan]

Why is happiness not a good life goal? You're right though, working/not working is an on/off switch for happiness, but not having to worry about money and not having to work is something that reduces life stress overall.

 

[321931]

Finish Dental School. Go to community health or army and develop confidence/people skills. Do not go into private practice until you are comfortable with chilling with patients. If it never comes, then it's fine, just clock in 8-5 at some community health making a decent living and find something else you want to do in your free time.

Don't worry about others, concentrate on yourself. I've seen way to many dysfunctional dental students in my classes that I know just won't make it in the real world. Don't compare yourself to them, focus on yourself and be yourself.

 

[TanMan]

Finish Dental School. Go to community health or army and develop confidence/people skills. Do not go into private practice until you are comfortable with chilling with patients. If it never comes, then it's fine, just clock in 8-5 at some community health making a decent living and find something else you want to do in your free time.

Don't worry about others, concentrate on yourself. I've seen way to many dysfunctional dental students in my classes that I know just won't make it in the real world. Don't compare yourself to them, focus on yourself and be yourself.

Why community health or army v. associateship for a mill / private practice?

 

[Incis0r]

I agree with being wise and efficient with resources. I cannot agree that time spent at work or in school was a "waste" for me. I felt very fulfilled. I like having a challenge. A vocation has been neccessan for me to have a full life.

Totally agree. I’m glad this applies to you too. DS + this profession is a big part of me and I love getting up everyday and going to school.

Why is happiness not a good life goal? You're right though, working/not working is an on/off switch for happiness, but not having to worry about money and not having to work is something that reduces life stress overall.

Also a very insightful point regarding financial independence. Once you have enough wealth that you don’t rely on a job for it, you can begin turn down work that doesn’t interest you more easily and free up time for more fulfilling projects that may have a larger upfront cost or not as guaranteed of a return.

 

[cloth_alert00]

Graduate, work, once you start making 6 figures for 3-4 days a week your perspective will change lol. And you can have another career or business on the side. A few of my teachers are commercial pilots, active in real estate or own businesses, and have successful dental practices/careers. It's all about finding your niche.

 

[periopocket]

Broski, don't be crazy, get through the year, then go get a job as a dental faculty.

 

[setdoc7]

Not so big secret of dentistry: Your hand skills aren't as important as you think... what's more important is talking to people. If you can talk to people, you'll do well in dentistry. However, if you talk to your patients with the same insecurities underlined in your post, then you need to work on talking to your patients.

There's only one reason I can think of that you can walk away from this without major consequences to your life. If your family, benefactor, spouse, or someone who cares enough about you to bail you out is rich enough to absorb your student loans, then quit now and seek happiness elsewhere. Otherwise, you're in very deep in a professional school that has plenty of potential to get out of debt. Have you considered just sucking it up, graduate, make tons of money and retire? If you live to only be 50, you've wasted 6% (3 years of your life already), do you want to waste/utilize another 8-20% of your life going to another profession?

 

[setdoc7]

Not so big secret of dentistry: Your hand skills aren't as important as you think... what's more important is talking to people. If you can talk to people, you'll do well in dentistry. However, if you talk to your patients with the same insecurities underlined in your post, then you need to work on talking to your patients.

There's only one reason I can think of that you can walk away from this without major consequences to your life. If your family, benefactor, spouse, or someone who cares enough about you to bail you out is rich enough to absorb your student loans, then quit now and seek happiness elsewhere. Otherwise, you're in very deep in a professional school that has plenty of potential to get out of debt. Have you considered just sucking it up, graduate, make tons of money and retire? If you live to only be 50, you've wasted 6% (3 years of your life already), do you want to waste/utilize another 8-20% of your life going to another profession?

Must strongly disagree with you. Hand skills are important. I receive new residents fresh out of school every July. Those with great hand skills advance more quickly both in time management and clinical case selection. Poor hand skills will translate into poor outcomes, or no outcomes at all. Although talking a good game to the patients is quite amusing, especially for a young doctor with little or no perspective on long term outcomes, the fact of the matter is that this is a procedure based profession (see CDT 2018) and one must be able to do procedures in order to practice.
As a practice owner with multiple associate employees, you will ultimately be responsible for whatever happens in your office as well. Not easy to separate from a negligent act that happened in your office. So that is not an easy out.
I am all for making money, I do not know any dentists who are not. I am against oversimplifying a complex situation.

OP, nothing is worse than finding out what you struggled so hard to achieve is really not what you are cut out for. There are lots of things to do in life, and lots of things to do in dentistry. Just remember, Conrad Hilton went bankrupt several times before building the Hilton empire. No matter what you do, there will always be some bump in the road. Keep your chin up and do what is best for you as a person. No one here on SDN can help you with that.

 

[gryffindor]

Finish. It's a valuable degree. There are completely non-clinical jobs out there that require a DDS but they aren't immediately found. Get out, network, try some different jobs in private practice and look for the non-clinical jobs. Or pursue the less patient/procedure intensive specialties - Radiology, Pathology, Public Health. There aren't enough good TMJ specialists out there. Not an official specialty, but very cerebral and minimally procedure based.

 

[TanMan]

Must strongly disagree with you. Hand skills are important. I receive new residents fresh out of school every July. Those with great hand skills advance more quickly both in time management and clinical case selection. Poor hand skills will translate into poor outcomes, or no outcomes at all. Although talking a good game to the patients is quite amusing, especially for a young doctor with little or no perspective on long term outcomes, the fact of the matter is that this is a procedure based profession (see CDT 2018) and one must be able to do procedures in order to practice.
As a practice owner with multiple associate employees, you will ultimately be responsible for whatever happens in your office as well. Not easy to separate from a negligent act that happened in your office. So that is not an easy out.
I am all for making money, I do not know any dentists who are not. I am against oversimplifying a complex situation.

OP, nothing is worse than finding out what you struggled so hard to achieve is really not what you are cut out for. There are lots of things to do in life, and lots of things to do in dentistry. Just remember, Conrad Hilton went bankrupt several times before building the Hilton empire. No matter what you do, there will always be some bump in the road. Keep your chin up and do what is best for you as a person. No one here on SDN can help you with that.

I think hand skills are important to a certain extent. A dentist may have the best hand skills in the world, but if they are mean or hurt the patient significantly, then the perceived quality (by the patient) goes out the door. The patient only knows a few variables: Did it hurt? Does it look/feel good? Did it last? Is the dentist nice and personable? Yes, hand skills are important to make sure that your work lasts and looks/feels good, but if you're going to put the patient through hell (physically and verbally), in their eyes, you are considered a terrible dentist. You are offering a product and/or service (depending on the way your market your skillset) and the patient really doesn't have much criteria to go off in terms of what's good or not. They trust you to a certain extent, but remember the aforementioned variables.

Why do I think learning to talk to patients is more important than hand skills? We are an intimate profession (very 1 on 1) and we're working on human beings (not mannequins). If you treat the patient with respect, treat them nice like a friend, and don't hurt them, their perception of you will be great, regardless of your hand skills. There is no 100% success in dentistry, and for that really small percentage of failures, you need to be able to have the relationship with those patients so that they don't sue you. Even with the best skills, you will not have 100% success because there's many variables out of our control. If and when you have failures, learn why the failure occurred and incorporate it into your practice of dentistry. For most procedures, if all else fails, you extract or RCT the tooth. You can always put another tooth in there. I've had procedures fail where I did RCT,b/u,crown (ended up extracting) and the patient still loves me enough to refer all their friends and family to us... why? Because I am nice to them. I am not dismissive, condescending, or rude to the patient unless they are the same way. Words don't cost you a thing, but they can go a long way.

If you have poor hand skills, talking to patients becomes more critical. Don't let anyone talk you out of becoming a dentist because you think you have poor hand skills. You'll improve over time to a level of clinical acceptability (see the 4 perceived patient quality variables in the first paragraph). Talking a good game might be amusing to some, but it will get you out of trouble more often than not.

Hand skills and speed are not always correlated. There are some dentists that do not have technically excellent preps, but they can crank out clinically acceptable preps. You can have the best hand skills in the world, but if you are slow as molasses in achieving perfection, the patient can also think that you are either: meticulous, slow, unsure and/or incompetent. All depends on how you market yourself and carry yourself. Find the path that works best for you, but remember what the patient goes through.

Practice liability on multiple associates - this depends on the state and your entity/structure. Typically, if you're incorporated, the ones that are liable are the corporate entity and the associate that messed up. Texas is awesome that we have tort limits and 2 year statute of limitations. Lawyers are often not willing to go to bat for MedMal cases due to low yield here. If the lawyers smell a big target, then they might be willing to go after you. If your practice is worth nil, nothing to go after, multiple liens and equity stripped, lawyers are less likely to go after you. Now, how do you protect your entity? Strip all the equity out of it via a holding company or other means (ask your legal team / accountant how to do this) and have malpractice insurance. Sure, they can go after your multiple companies, but most lawyers aren't willing to go through all your corporate layers for such a small fry such as us dentists.

 

[TXftw]

People skills trump hand skills in dentistry and it's not even close. Of course you cant be absolutely atrocious with your hands, but you only need to be able to use them well enough to make your work clinically acceptable. If the OP is in his 4th year of dental school without being held back, I am confident that his hand skills are as good as they need to be to practice dentistry. Like TanMan said, "Did it hurt? Does it look/feel good? Did it last? Is the dentist nice and personable?" are pretty much the only criteria going through a patients head when they formulate an opinion on their experience with you as a dentist.

If you want you patients to leave your office with the intention of coming back it is important that they feel they can relate to you (explaining why you're doing what you're doing and finding common interests help) and that you have shown them respect (don't reprimand them for being a little late to the office or scold them for the calculus accumulation around their teeth) a little bit of tact goes a long way. I also try to take one thing that each patient has shared with me about their life during their last appointment (ex. my last patients daughter had been in the hospital) and write it down next to their name so that next time the patient comes in I remember something about them and I can easily create conversation with them and see how they're doing. It makes them feel like they're more than just a procedure to you and helps build trust.

You see it every day in the real world. The dentist who is sociable, caring and tactful with very mediocre hand skills will have a far more successful practice than the dentist with incredible hand skills that is socially incompetent. OP, instead of being insecure with your hand skills, you need to step back and see the big picture. They're not as important as you think.

 

[2TH MVR]

Lets be greedy. Best to have great people skills and great hand skills. Marketing is all about people skills, but efficiency of treatment is all about hand skills. Need them both.

 

[TXftw]

Lets be greedy. Best to have great people skills and great hand skills. Marketing is all about people skills, but efficiency of treatment is all about hand skills. Need them both.

Well ya, that would be ideal. You should strive to be the best you can be in all aspects. I’m saying you can enjoy a very successful career in dentistry without great hand skills because that’s where OP’s conflict lies.

 

[753698]

You can try and look into entrepreneurial dentistry. You will have to do dentistry in the start, but later on you can be more business owner and less dentist.