What do you do after a day of work as a dentist?

[Inkdot]

I work Mon-Fri 0800-1700 as a graduate dentist; sometimes work overtime, sometimes work through my tea/ lunch breaks. I wake up a bit earlier in the morning to squeeze in some study & try and do some study after work as well. The senior dentist today warned me about burnout and it made me slightly worried as this is not good in the long-term.

Just wondering what you guys do (as dentists) after a day or week of work? Thought it would be helpful to generate discussion so I can gauge if I am doing too much too soon.

Thanks

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[Saddleshoes]

1) Go Home.
2) Forget about Work (Dentistry).
3) Don't think about work (Dentistry) until I walk in the door the next day.

 

[DrJeff]

Pre kids:

Go home, either workout, go out with my wife, make dinner, relax

Young Kids:

Go home (often having to pick a kid or 2 up from daycare and/or after school care/activities), possibly take a kid or 2 to an evening sports team practice, dinner, hang out with the family, get the kids off the bed, then try and relax a bit with my wife. Possibly get a workout in if I didn't do so in the morning

Middle School/Highschool aged kids:

Go home, a great deal of the time having to get one/both from an afterschool practice/event, occasionally even get to watch one of their after school games/matches, dinner, loosely supervise homework, hang out with the family/wife. Possibly get a workout in if I didn't do so in the morning

And in just over 2 years I will get to see what the post work, both kids in college routine is like. I might actually just get to do a few more things for myself that interest me on occasion like join the weekly men's golf league at the course I belong to, and definitely plan on going out to dinner with my wife more often!

Regardless of my life situation, one thing that I don't do after work the majority of the time, is actually think about work!!

 

[2TH MVR]

It helps if you like what you do. If you hate your profession .... nothing is going to prevent burnout.
Things I did or do to prevent burnout.

1. I take a FULL 1 hour lunch and LEAVE the office. My staff knew this was set in stone. Allowed me to re-charge for the afternoon. I work Corp now. Same scenario. I need my 1 hour lunch. I usually like to eat my lunch in my car for for some peace and quiet.

2. Everyone's economic needs are different. Early on ..... working 6 days a week maybe necessary. But later on ... .this is a ridiculous schedule. As you get older ..... TIME becomes the most important commodity in your life. Nothing else matters. At the DSO .... I used to work around 4 days per week. To help out with some vacancies .... I've been asked to work 5-6 days per week. This SUCKS. I need to get back to 4 days to get my life back.

3. The usual: Diet and excercise. It's so easy to eat crap for lunch when you have only a few minutes for lunch or are rushing. Due to time issues .... I hate going to the gym ...... therefore .... I have a home gym. No excuses.

4. Leave dentistry at work. Again .... different situations. If you are a practice owner ..... this will be difficult. When I was a practice owner ... I was always thinking about my practice (s). Always. As an employee .... seriously. You shouldn't have to think about work. If anything ..... I enjoy the drama of incompetent corporate dentistry. It's THEIR problem. Not yours. I posted this before. I only have a few close dentist friends. Most of my friends are NOT DENTISTS. On my days off .... the last thing I want to talk about is DENTISTRY.

5. I NEVER work overtime and I am pissed if I have to stay longer than my usual quitting time.

6. Annoying patients can lead to burn out. In private practice .... have an established procedure to transfer their care to another dentist. The stress is not worth it. In Corporate. I send any unruly patient directly to the business manager. One of the perks of being an employee. Manager gets to deal with the problems.


Again. Hopefully you like being a dentist. If you enjoy dentistry ..... then it is easier to prevent burnout.

 

[Saddleshoes]

1. I take a FULL 1 hour lunch and LEAVE the office. My staff knew this was set in stone. Allowed me to re-charge for the afternoon. I work Corp now. Same scenario. I need my 1 hour lunch. I usually like to eat my lunch in my car for for some peace and quiet.

Me Too!!!!
(I have a very nice park nearby with a beautiful garden for lunching in the car. In the winter they have a greenhouse which is open and warm!)

Also---In the morning when I come in, I only look at the morning schedule. The staff and I have a quick planning huddle about the morning only. We then go to work. I refuse to look at the afternoon schedule until after I return from lunch. After lunch we have a quick huddle and get to it. I like to keep the AM problems in the AM and the PM problems in the PM.

 

[2TH MVR]

Me Too!!!!
(I have a very nice park nearby with a beautiful garden for lunching in the car. In the winter they have a greenhouse which is open and warm!)

Also---In the morning when I come in, I only look at the morning schedule. The staff and I have a quick planning huddle about the morning only. We then go to work. I refuse to look at the afternoon schedule until after I return from lunch. After lunch we have a quick huddle and get to it. I like to keep the AM problems in the AM and the PM problems in the PM.

That's a good point. I NEVER look at tomorrow's schedule. Again ... easier if you are an employee.

 

[PerioDont]

I work Mon-Fri 0800-1700 as a graduate dentist; sometimes work overtime, sometimes work through my tea/ lunch breaks. I wake up a bit earlier in the morning to squeeze in some study & try and do some study after work as well. The senior dentist today warned me about burnout and it made me slightly worried as this is not good in the long-term.

Just wondering what you guys do (as dentists) after a day or week of work? Thought it would be helpful to generate discussion so I can gauge if I am doing too much too soon.

Thanks

What exactly are you studying before and after work?

curious do you practice in the states?

 

[Inkdot]

What exactly are you studying before and after work?

curious do you practice in the states?

I practice in Australia.
During work I keep a journal log of things that did not go so well, or things that I would like to read up on further after work. It's kind of like a self-reflection log. Before/ after work, I delve into these reflections further & look up articles or watch webinars to add to my continuing professional development. I feel the need to do this because I'm only in my first month out, and I feel there is so much to learn/ lots to improve on. There is a vast discrepancy between how much I know & what the senior dentist knows (he is 30 yrs qualified now), understandably, but I just feel a bit of pressure to keep up with him and his expectations. I know this is self-inflicted mostly and it's probably my fault I feel this way.

I am also in the process of studying for the primary exams (to specialise, maybe) as this is the first step to achieving a fellowship with the College of Dental Surgeons here in Aus. These exams will be in Nov/ Dec this year & consist of a written component as well as viva voce.

 

[TanMan]

I work Mon-Fri 0800-1700 as a graduate dentist; sometimes work overtime, sometimes work through my tea/ lunch breaks. I wake up a bit earlier in the morning to squeeze in some study & try and do some study after work as well. The senior dentist today warned me about burnout and it made me slightly worried as this is not good in the long-term.

Just wondering what you guys do (as dentists) after a day or week of work? Thought it would be helpful to generate discussion so I can gauge if I am doing too much too soon.

Thanks

How does it work in Australia? Are you a fully independent practicing dentist, resident, or does the hierarchy of dentistry work differently? If you still have to study, they you should probably be absolutely focused on passing those exams. If you find that your perceived inferiority to your senior attending motivates you, then that's a great motivator to be at his or her level. I had a slight glimpse of this when we had oral surgery rotations, and I made sure to know as much as I can to provide no hesitation to any answer OR be able to verbally talk my way out of a question with an information dump/non-answer.

What you should be doing depends on your stage of professional life. From what I gather, it looks like you may not be a fully independent practicing dentist yet, so you should be absolutely focused on beating the exams. If you are feeling the burnout, there are ways to relieve stress and there's no right or wrong way to relieve stress/burnout. Some people may resort to working out, drinking, or even sexy time, but it's up to you to find the outlet to destress.

I limit my hours of work. I try to keep it at 30 hours or less per week. No bathroom/lunch/food breaks as it disrupts the laser focus of working through the queue. Since I wake up later, my brain is usually at peak function around 2-3pm, physical peak hits around 7-8pm, go to bed around 2-4am. Understand your circadian rhythms along with your window of circadian lows and exploit your peak performance times. I hate morning/pre-work huddles. Staff knows there's a problem if I have to have a general meeting before work since I won't do it unless there's a major issue I need to address. I get there, review the schedule, formulate strategies on patient queues to get as many people out as possible. If there's no ops patients but hygiene patients that have their xrays taken, I'll review ahead of time to reduce my exam time. They call me when first patient arrives then we're done when the last patient leaves. I don't sit down in my office again until the last patient leaves.

What you could do to become more productive AND reduce burnout? Have a strategy to flow through your patients. Many people don't have a strategy and become inefficient at processing patient quotas. An example of a quota system (which you will need to adapt based on patient showrate or showtime) is doing it by rooms... In my mind, I'll have OP11, OP7, OP8, OP6, OP2/3 (family), back to OP7 to complete, and so on... Having that crushing pressure will give your mind to adapt to the burnout and pressure, and give structure where there's no apparent structure in your workday. When you walk out of the office, you should have the energy to literally jump for joy that it's all over for the day (until the next day) and do something that relieves stress.

Good luck with your exams!

 

[oralcare123]

Drink. Pass out

 

[Inkdot]

Many people don't have a strategy and become inefficient at processing patient quotas. An example of a quota system (which you will need to adapt based on patient showrate or showtime) is doing it by rooms... In my mind, I'll have OP11, OP7, OP8, OP6, OP2/3 (family), back to OP7 to complete, and so on... Having that crushing pressure will give your mind to adapt to the burnout and pressure, and give structure where there's no apparent structure in your workday.

Thanks for your detailed response. What do you mean by the quota system exactly? Could you please elaborate on this further... I am interested as to what this is.

 

[PerioDont]

How does it work in Australia? Are you a fully independent practicing dentist, resident, or does the hierarchy of dentistry work differently? If you still have to study, they you should probably be absolutely focused on passing those exams. If you find that your perceived inferiority to your senior attending motivates you, then that's a great motivator to be at his or her level. I had a slight glimpse of this when we had oral surgery rotations, and I made sure to know as much as I can to provide no hesitation to any answer OR be able to verbally talk my way out of a question with an information dump/non-answer.

What you should be doing depends on your stage of professional life. From what I gather, it looks like you may not be a fully independent practicing dentist yet, so you should be absolutely focused on beating the exams. If you are feeling the burnout, there are ways to relieve stress and there's no right or wrong way to relieve stress/burnout. Some people may resort to working out, drinking, or even sexy time, but it's up to you to find the outlet to destress.

I limit my hours of work. I try to keep it at 30 hours or less per week. No bathroom/lunch/food breaks as it disrupts the laser focus of working through the queue. Since I wake up later, my brain is usually at peak function around 2-3pm, physical peak hits around 7-8pm, go to bed around 2-4am. Understand your circadian rhythms along with your window of circadian lows and exploit your peak performance times. I hate morning/pre-work huddles. Staff knows there's a problem if I have to have a general meeting before work since I won't do it unless there's a major issue I need to address. I get there, review the schedule, formulate strategies on patient queues to get as many people out as possible. If there's no ops patients but hygiene patients that have their xrays taken, I'll review ahead of time to reduce my exam time. They call me when first patient arrives then we're done when the last patient leaves. I don't sit down in my office again until the last patient leaves.

What you could do to become more productive AND reduce burnout? Have a strategy to flow through your patients. Many people don't have a strategy and become inefficient at processing patient quotas. An example of a quota system (which you will need to adapt based on patient showrate or showtime) is doing it by rooms... In my mind, I'll have OP11, OP7, OP8, OP6, OP2/3 (family), back to OP7 to complete, and so on... Having that crushing pressure will give your mind to adapt to the burnout and pressure, and give structure where there's no apparent structure in your workday. When you walk out of the office, you should have the energy to literally jump for joy that it's all over for the day (until the next day) and do something that relieves stress.

Good luck with your exams!

This is absolutely fantastic. my goal is to operate at this level of efficiency when I get out of residency in three years.

Confident I can produce 2.5-3M/year assuming a couple solid referral sources spread over multiple locations.

 

[TanMan]

Thanks for your detailed response. What do you mean by the quota system exactly? Could you please elaborate on this further... I am interested as to what this is.

Quota system (or a queuing system) is like juggling your days work to minimize any downtimes, get as many patients in and out in the shortest amount of time, understanding when you have downtime with a given patient and how that downtime can be reallocated to other patients waiting. It gets more complex as you increase the number of patients. Lets use a simple example.

I have 3 ops patients / 4 hygiene in hour 1, I have another 3 ops patients/7 hygiene in hour 2. Your limitation is your rooms and patients. If 2 of those ops patients are fills, 1 is an RCTBUCrn, I need to determine the sequence of numbing. Numbing will first go to procedure of priority, the rctbucrn. The reason is that you need to prep the crown first to start the crown fabrication process because that takes longer. The next 2 to numb are the fills. So when you numb all 3, you prep the crown, then take your impression or digital impression. Move to fills, and if no hygiene are ready, finish your last fills for the hour, and if no one is ready for hygiene checks yet, finish your RCT + crown cementation. If in any of those gaps, those hygiene checks are ready and you can squeeze them in, do them, if not, keep knocking out the ops. You have to always be aware of your schedule and any curveballs. You also have to be aware of any room shortages (such as, do I need an op room, do I need hygiene rooms?) My operating assumption is that I need the first hour hygiene out within the first hour. Then the fun piles in. You got your second wave coming. If you're not done with your ops procedures, you need to wrap it up, and get ready to incorporate it into a queue. If, for example, you didn't finish the RCT yet, but the crown is done, then you go numb the next 3 ops patients, they fall 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in line, looking at the same logical sequence as the first hour. Then push hygiene when you can. Repeat every hour until done. Hopefully this makes some sense.

 

[charlestweed]

4. Leave dentistry at work. Again .... different situations. If you are a practice owner ..... this will be difficult. When I was a practice owner ... I was always thinking about my practice (s). Always. As an employee .... seriously. You shouldn't have to think about work. If anything ..... I enjoy the drama of incompetent corporate dentistry. It's THEIR problem. Not yours. I posted this before. I only have a few close dentist friends. Most of my friends are NOT DENTISTS. On my days off .... the last thing I want to talk about is DENTISTRY.

Very True. As a practice owner, I always think about work. I bring work home and I’d rather do this (so I can be with my family) than working at the office. I handle all the supply orders myself because I want to control cost and I don’t trust my staff to handle this for me. 100% of the supply orders are placed online and they are all shipped to my house, instead of my office. I don’t deal with the sale reps. I spend a lot of time on various websites to get best possible deals on the supplies: Ebay, Amazon, Darby, Pearson, Dynaflex, OSE, Cxorthosupply etc.

It’s also important for me to know what the schedule looks like ahead of time so I can hire the right number of assistants to help me. As an owner, I want to have as many patients (especially start cases and new patient consultations) on the appt book as possible. It feels good to have a busy productive day. Who wouldn’t want to have a successful practice? But at the corp office where I work P/T for, it’s the opposite mentality….I want to see as few patients and deal with the least amount of stress as possible. Associate dentists and assistants don’t care about the office the way the practice owner does. Since it’s not their office, they only do the minimal work (and refer “risky” cases to the specialists) and go home early. I am guilty of this too when I work as an associate ortho for the corp.

 

[Inkdot]

Quota system (or a queuing system) is like juggling your days work to minimize any downtimes, get as many patients in and out in the shortest amount of time, understanding when you have downtime with a given patient and how that downtime can be reallocated to other patients waiting. It gets more complex as you increase the number of patients. Lets use a simple example.

I have 3 ops patients / 4 hygiene in hour 1, I have another 3 ops patients/7 hygiene in hour 2. Your limitation is your rooms and patients. If 2 of those ops patients are fills, 1 is an RCTBUCrn, I need to determine the sequence of numbing. Numbing will first go to procedure of priority, the rctbucrn. The reason is that you need to prep the crown first to start the crown fabrication process because that takes longer. The next 2 to numb are the fills. So when you numb all 3, you prep the crown, then take your impression or digital impression. Move to fills, and if no hygiene are ready, finish your last fills for the hour, and if no one is ready for hygiene checks yet, finish your RCT + crown cementation. If in any of those gaps, those hygiene checks are ready and you can squeeze them in, do them, if not, keep knocking out the ops. You have to always be aware of your schedule and any curveballs. You also have to be aware of any room shortages (such as, do I need an op room, do I need hygiene rooms?) My operating assumption is that I need the first hour hygiene out within the first hour. Then the fun piles in. You got your second wave coming. If you're not done with your ops procedures, you need to wrap it up, and get ready to incorporate it into a queue. If, for example, you didn't finish the RCT yet, but the crown is done, then you go numb the next 3 ops patients, they fall 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in line, looking at the same logical sequence as the first hour. Then push hygiene when you can. Repeat every hour until done. Hopefully this makes some sense.

Makes a lot of sense and sounds very strategic. Unfortunately I am limited by the number of rooms I have in the hospital where I work so I can’t make this a reality just yet, but this is definitely something I will consider if I have more than one room to work in.

Although I suppose I can apply this quota principle to an extent eg. Pt comes in for a difficult exo with an abscessed tooth. I can give the pt LA, and ask them to wait in the waiting room for approx 30min for LA to take effect. During this time I can call in an exam or S/C patient and get them out of the way. Then I can bring the exo patient back in.

 

[Inkdot]

Very True. As a practice owner, I always think about work. I bring work home and I’d rather do this (so I can be with my family) than working at the office. I handle all the supply orders myself because I want to control cost and I don’t trust my staff to handle this for me. 100% of the supply orders are placed online and they are all shipped to my house, instead of my office. I don’t deal with the sale reps. I spend a lot of time on various websites to get best possible deals on the supplies: Ebay, Amazon, Darby, Pearson, Dynaflex, OSE, Cxorthosupply etc.

It’s also important for me to know what the schedule looks like ahead of time so I can hire the right number of assistants to help me. As an owner, I want to have as many patients (especially start cases and new patient consultations) on the appt book as possible. It feels good to have a busy productive day. Who wouldn’t want to have a successful practice? But at the corp office where I work P/T for, it’s the opposite mentality….I want to see as few patients and deal with the least amount of stress as possible. Associate dentists and assistants don’t care about the office the way the practice owner does. Since it’s not their office, they only do the minimal work (and refer “risky” cases to the specialists) and go home early. I am guilty of this too when I work as an associate ortho for the corp.

I can imagine being a practice owner would be a significant challenge, as there is the business side of dentistry to think about as well. They don’t teach us this aspect in dental school unfortunately. I suppose it’s almost like being an entrepreneur on top of being a dentist, which is indeed quite a weight to bear.

After how many years did you open up your own private practice, if I may ask?

 

[Inkdot]

Me Too!!!!
(I have a very nice park nearby with a beautiful garden for lunching in the car. In the winter they have a greenhouse which is open and warm!)

Also---In the morning when I come in, I only look at the morning schedule. The staff and I have a quick planning huddle about the morning only. We then go to work. I refuse to look at the afternoon schedule until after I return from lunch. After lunch we have a quick huddle and get to it. I like to keep the AM problems in the AM and the PM problems in the PM.

This sounds ideal, however straight after lunch one day we had a wheelchair-bound patient booked in. So during our morning huddle we had to discuss logistics for that in terms of staff numbers to aid hoist transfer & clinicians to swap rooms for this patient. In hindsight, I was glad we discussed this post-lunch patient so we could prepare most efficiently for her when the time came. I just felt it was more organised and thus less stressful on the whole team.

 

[2TH MVR]

Quota system (or a queuing system) is like juggling your days work to minimize any downtimes, get as many patients in and out in the shortest amount of time, understanding when you have downtime with a given patient and how that downtime can be reallocated to other patients waiting. It gets more complex as you increase the number of patients. Lets use a simple example.

I have 3 ops patients / 4 hygiene in hour 1, I have another 3 ops patients/7 hygiene in hour 2. Your limitation is your rooms and patients. If 2 of those ops patients are fills, 1 is an RCTBUCrn, I need to determine the sequence of numbing. Numbing will first go to procedure of priority, the rctbucrn. The reason is that you need to prep the crown first to start the crown fabrication process because that takes longer. The next 2 to numb are the fills. So when you numb all 3, you prep the crown, then take your impression or digital impression. Move to fills, and if no hygiene are ready, finish your last fills for the hour, and if no one is ready for hygiene checks yet, finish your RCT + crown cementation. If in any of those gaps, those hygiene checks are ready and you can squeeze them in, do them, if not, keep knocking out the ops. You have to always be aware of your schedule and any curveballs. You also have to be aware of any room shortages (such as, do I need an op room, do I need hygiene rooms?) My operating assumption is that I need the first hour hygiene out within the first hour. Then the fun piles in. You got your second wave coming. If you're not done with your ops procedures, you need to wrap it up, and get ready to incorporate it into a queue. If, for example, you didn't finish the RCT yet, but the crown is done, then you go numb the next 3 ops patients, they fall 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in line, looking at the same logical sequence as the first hour. Then push hygiene when you can. Repeat every hour until done. Hopefully this makes some sense.

I'm getting burned out just reading your post lol.
Jokes aside ..... you essentially run your dental practice like an ortho practice. Ortho is all about seeing large numbers of patients. You have to be organized and have exceptional staffs to be able to see large numbers of patients (60-100) daily without being too stressed. Pre-Covid I worked out of 8-12 chairs. All full of patients with various procedures. The advantage I have over general is ortho procedures can be changed for any patient depending on the busyness of the schedule at that time. If we're a little slow .... I will bond some 2nd molars, reposition brackets or other longer procedures. Busy ..... only short procedures. Patients in ortho really do not know what their appt is (besides getting their braces off) .... so I can change their appt on the fly. dependent on the current flow of patients. Lots of time savor strategies learned from years of practicing.

But with general .... I would have to believe your procedures are more "defined". I mean a patient is scheduled for a MO or crown prep on #14. Not sure you can decide not to do it if the schedule gets too crazy or the inevitable issue with a disgruntled patient. The issue I see with your system is there does not appear to be any room for the "unknown". No slush factor. I can imagine your heart rate is racing running around trying to keep on schedule. No lunch to recharge? Sounds like a long day.

I get it. You like to be ultra efficient and make tons of money. I agree that it is better to be busy during a short work week (30 hours, 4 days) than spread out your schedule over 5 days with the same production. As long as your health can keep up with your fast paced schedule. Some would view your schedule as one potentially leading to future burnout.

 

[TanMan]

I'm getting burned out just reading your post lol.
Jokes aside ..... you essentially run your dental practice like an ortho practice. Ortho is all about seeing large numbers of patients. You have to be organized and have exceptional staffs to be able to see large numbers of patients (60-100) daily without being too stressed. Pre-Covid I worked out of 8-12 chairs. All full of patients with various procedures. The advantage I have over general is ortho procedures can be changed for any patient depending on the busyness of the schedule at that time. If we're a little slow .... I will bond some 2nd molars, reposition brackets or other longer procedures. Busy ..... only short procedures. Patients in ortho really do not know what their appt is (besides getting their braces off) .... so I can change their appt on the fly. dependent on the current flow of patients. Lots of time savor strategies learned from years of practicing.

But with general .... I would have to believe your procedures are more "defined". I mean a patient is scheduled for a MO or crown prep on #14. Not sure you can decide not to do it if the schedule gets too crazy or the inevitable issue with a disgruntled patient. The issue I see with your system is there does not appear to be any room for the "unknown". No slush factor. I can imagine your heart rate is racing running around trying to keep on schedule. No lunch to recharge? Sounds like a long day.

I get it. You like to be ultra efficient and make tons of money. I agree that it is better to be busy during a short work week (30 hours, 4 days) than spread out your schedule over 5 days with the same production. As long as your health can keep up with your fast paced schedule. Some would view your schedule as one potentially leading to future burnout.

There is no deciding to not do a procedure. If it is scheduled, it will be done. The gatekeeper/flow control comes more from accepting more treatment for the day. If I accept treatment same day, it needs to be quick procedures such as single crowns, single rcts, fills, or exts. I tend not to favor same day fills unless it's one fill or a back to back MO/DO fill. Anything else is rescheduled, since fills are exhausting and not as a productive. The exception is if I'm going to finish the hour block early or on time, then i'll fit in a longer same day treatment.

You're right that there's no slush factor, which is good and bad. It's good because there's little inefficiency and unproductive time; the downside is that if you run long, it could haunt you the whole day. If a procedure takes longer, then the solution is to go faster on the other procedures to make up for time lost.

 

[charlestweed]

I can imagine being a practice owner would be a significant challenge, as there is the business side of dentistry to think about as well. They don’t teach us this aspect in dental school unfortunately. I suppose it’s almost like being an entrepreneur on top of being a dentist, which is indeed quite a weight to bear.

After how many years did you open up your own private practice, if I may ask?

It’s actually not a bad thing that you have to spend additional time (outside of the patient treatment time) to work to grow your practice. It’s good to be busy and it’s good that you have to think about work all the time because this means that you have a thriving practice with a lot of patients. I’d rather have a lot of work to do in a busy practice than having too much free time (sitting around doing nothing) at a slow failing practice. A lot of practice owners wish to have a busy work schedule everyday but can’t have it because of oversaturation and competition. It’s different when you work for yourself. My practice is my baby….I take care of it like I take care of my own children.

After how many years did you open up your own private practice, if I may ask?

4 years. The reason I had waited that long was I was very comfortable with the associate salary and the lifestyle. I didn’t want to give up the good associate income, took out additional loan (to build a practice) and downgrade the lifestyle. Now looking back, I wish I should have started my own office a lot sooner. I didn’t know that I could do both at the same time: open my own office and continue work part time at the corp to supplement the income.

 

[Cold Front]

Today...

1. Decompress for 30-60 mins as soon as I get home.

2. Time with wife for 1-2 hours (including dinner). Connect with parents on FaceTime if they’re available.

3. Plan for next day/watch a documentary/read something educational. Give the mind a 1-2 hour vacation from my day. I’m not on social media.

4. Go to bed and sleep for 8 hours on my Sleep Number bed.


Ten years ago...

Stressed about the offices and new businesses. Worked around the clock. Don’t miss it! Life sucks when you are in the building phase of your career and financial life.

 

[charlestweed]

Today...

1. Decompress for 30-60 mins as soon as I get home.

2. Time with wife for 1-2 hours (including dinner). Connect with parents on FaceTime if they’re available.

3. Plan for next day/watch a documentary/read something educational. Give the mind a 1-2 hour vacation from my day. I’m not on social media.

4. Go to bed and sleep for 8 hours on my Sleep Number bed.


Ten years ago...

Stressed about the offices and new businesses. Worked around the clock. Don’t miss it! Life sucks when you are in the building phase of your career and financial life.

Dentistry has given you a very good life and a lot of money to invest in other things. Ten years is a very short amount of time and you have accomplished so much. In spite of such amazing success, you continue to dissuade the young college students from pursuing dentistry.

 

[Cold Front]

Dentistry has given you a very good life and a lot of money to invest in other things. Ten years is a very short amount of time and you have accomplished so much. In spite of such amazing success, you continue to dissuade the young college students from pursuing dentistry.

I warn pre dents to not take the decision to apply to dental school and become a dentist lightly. There are a lot of uncertainties in the future of dentistry. From dental school and training cost/student loans to dental insurances that control 80% of a dentist’s paycheck. Yes, a pre dent can finish dental school, which is essentially a monolithic process, but the real world is a moving target and by no means provides a financial success to all dentists by default. It takes a lot of financial knowledge, grit and very ambitious goals and mindset to get there. I wish every dentist a success and for them to accomplish their dream goals. But the landscape today and into the future has become full of land mines.

Just to go off a tangent here, the world has changed while dentistry has become stagnant. The 3 main things every person needs are food, shelter and transportation. While all dentists can have all 3, the quality of those 3 essentials are still relative to the economy. For instance, as a rule of thumb, a 30% of any individuals income should be the ceiling towards the cost of the home or an apartment they rent. In this economic climate, more than half of Americans are paying above 30% of their paycheck towards renting a place to live in. It’s just a tiny example of how small things can add up to make a lot of professions income very light compared to real world cost.

Thanks for the kind words, my constructive criticism of the profession will continue until there are more positive outlooks than negative ones.

 

[OhioDMD]