Who Dat

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints and all their fans!!

I don't even want to know how long it takes for some of my friends in that part of the country to get back to work - Mardi Gras started a little early this year.

The kids and I watched the game at a friend's house (they have kids my kids' ages so it lets me watch the game). Momma is stuck in Baltimore for only another few hours (hopefully) so the kids got a surprise extra day with dad. You can read that as you will - probably any interpretation of it is an accurate summary of the weekend ;)

Busy weekend for me doing the 3 kid single parent thing. Karate, soccer, basketball, church, clean the house, super bowl. . .all-in-all a good weekend.

Now, the lawyer in me is requiring that I place a disclaimer in the blog this week. Given all the hoopla over the phrase "Who Dat" and the NFL's laser-like focus on protecting its brand. I must emphasize:

when I say "who dat" I am using it in the common vernacular reflecting the Cajun/French heritage of the indigenous peoples of the lower Mississippi valley.
And by the New Orleans Saints, I mean not the professional sports franchise that is a member of the National Football League. Rather I mean the fine people of the great state of Louisiana who have been canonized and beatified by Papal decree after meeting the requirements laid out by Pope John the XV in the 10th century. And by super bowl, I do not mean the trademarked name of the championship game played between the top 2 teams in said National Football League; I refer to that event as the final game of the NFL season which, to the best of my knowledge, is not a trademarked phrase. However, should said phrase be later found to be trademarked or otherwise encumbered by some claim of ownership or artistic licensure, I hereby agree to refer to said game by whatever phrase is legally permissible at the time. In no way is the AGD, Dr. John Gammichia or any reader of this blog liable for my reference to the game and my descriptions of plays or commentary of the game is entirely a work of fiction and any similarity to plays, players or broadcasts of said fictional game is entirely coincidental.

Whew, that took me a good 7 minutes to compose - and I bill in 1/10 of an hour increments so that was billed at 12 minutes at a rate of $100/hour because I like you guys and am giving you my discount rate - so please remit $20 to the AGD Advocacy Fund in honor of that awesome legal paragraph.

OK, now that the legal particulars are out of the way. I thought it was a good game. Brees played good, Manning played good. The defenses played good. The Who played good. The commercials were 'meh'. Oh, and anyone see the really controversial Tebow ad???? OOOOO a guy joking around with his mom. It just dripped of political conservatism. Right after the ad I felt this strange urge to go out and buy a gun and join the Tea Party Movement.

Seriously, if the media hadn't played up the ad as being anti-abortion would anyone have even noticed?? I'm betting the Focus on the Family website got tons of hits over that ad. Apparently the adage is true, there is no such thing as bad press.

Dental topic, dental topic, dental topic. . .how 'bout dealing with patients that have insurance and trying to explain how insurance doesn't cover everything. Isn't that fun. Let's take a for instance using a fictional insurance company, let's call it Triangle. Now, Triangle Dental Insurance Company has separate companies in all 50 states. Then within each state is has a couple of different master plans. Then each of those master plans can be personalized to suit the employer that is buying the plan. This leaves the dentist with around 200,000,000 different coverage tables.

Now, said dentist sets up his practice focused on treating the patient, not on doing only what an individual insurance company allows. Accordingly, he takes routine x-rays 1 time per year on healthy adults and every 6 months on minors. More frequently based on caries risk. Fluoride is dispensed routinely to children and as needed to teenagers and adults based on caries risk.

Most of the time this is not an issue because most insurance companies pay for these treatments at this frequency. Then you get the outlier that apparently changed its policy to x-rays every 2 years and no flouride. Patient comes in that is a caries risk and you take radiographs and place fluoride because there are some incipient lesions that you might be able to remineralize. 2 months later the patient's parent calls upset because the insurance company says that the fluoride isn't covered and you have to justify your treatment.

I don't mind patients questioning what we do, it is my job to educate patients.

What I don't like is having to defend against an assumption that if it isn't covered it isn't needed. I know, it is an age-old problem, but I'm curious how your offices handle it. If you read this blog and are not a dentist, how would you like this to be explained to you?

That's all for now, the voices miss Susan and are ready for her to get home safely.

Have a great week.

ric

Facebook

Hey all,

Will you be my "friend"?

Facebook, it is so crazy.
I go on Facebook and I see what is on my Homepage.

"don't go to sleep with a frown in your pocket"

Gavin became a fan of We can find 1,000,000 people who DO believe in Evolution before June.

Tony G and Emerson T are now friends

Paula D became a fan of 4 Rivers Smokehouse.

Johannes G "There is no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man with human flesh." Frank Herbert

I just became a fan of Angulo Dental who....

We are a small dental office committed to making dentistry not scary anymore. Serving metro Orlando since fall of 2001. Many smiles and lives have been changed over the last 8 years. It's what we do.

This is my friend Jorge who started a fan page for his office.

Facebook is becoming sooooo huge that this is the way people are communicating.
Friends are reuniting. People can find groups that they can support. Old flings are rekindled. Marriages are breaking up. All the good stuff. People are spending precious time (and most people are doing it at WORK) updating and redoing and putting pictures on their Facebook account.

Julia W became a fan of Nancy's Italian Ice.

I have to admit I rarely go to my facebook page. I rarely update anything and when I do go on there I am so surprised at all the crap I find.
I am just going to come out and say it.
I have to tell you that I think Facebook is soooo stupid. I am sorry to all the students and people under 30 that I have just wickedly offended.
I just don't get it. Now I know I am old. I know you might have a tough time teaching this dog new tricks. Someone please tell me what they see in Facebook.
Have I seen pictures of people I haven't seen in awhile? Yes
Have I talked to my old high school classmates? Yes
But when I say "yes", I am talking like 3 sentences, and then I go back to my busy life.
I have a hard enough time talking to the friends I have now. When I say friends, I mean real friends...not virtual Facebook friends.
And what the hell is this farm thing. People keep talking about building their farm, and "I can't wait to get home to my farm". I didn't even bother to look it up. I don't care.

Teresa D became a fan of Hu-Friedy Mfg. Co., Inc.

I also think Facebook is kind of dangerous for us middle-aged people.
We are in our lives and we think back on all the "Golden" years. So when was that? High School and college and dental school.
We had no cares in the world. We could study and party like rock stars. Man I will tell you I was so cool in those days. I was living it up on daddy's dime (dad, if you happen to come across this somehow, I love you and I was at the library all those times, I swear).
LIFE WAS VERY GOOD. I didn't have a care in the world. I didn't have this extra tire around my waist, and I for sure didn't have all this back hair.
But now when you really look at your life, it is much different because we didn't have kids to feed, bills to pay, soccer games, baseball games, church, doctors appointments, car payments, PTA meetings, Parent/teacher conferences, dental conferences....real exciting (can you just hear my sarcasm).

Ric Crowder became a fan of 5,000,000 People Strong For A "That's what she said" button.

When you look at your life, sometimes it looks kind of boring. People my age always want to think back to those times and say, "What have I become?" "What ever happened to that kid that used to drink beer and go skinny dipping with his friends at his girlfriend's lake house (dad again, I swear there was parent supervision like I told you). I am not saying my life now isn't great. Because it is, but some people my age would probably not love their life like I do.

So what do we do we go on Facebook and try to rekindle our first love. We try to see how she or he is doing (I say we but I don't mean me. I will get to my personal policies later). Remembering how much fun we had with that other person. Not remembering that person probably didn't shower every day or that his mommy did his laundry and had to wake them for school every day. Who cares about that, we had so much fun in high school 15 YEARS AGO.

Kirk S became a fan of Bruce O'Donoghue.

I know, I know, everyone doesn't go on Facebook to "hook up" with old flings. I know that we all want to see how our old classmates are doing. Yeah the guys you didn't like 20 years ago, let's see how they are doing today. Or let's see where so and so lives...Oh he is married, I thought for sure that guy would never get married. Well I get there is a lid for every jar.
Am I really out of it or are all of you on Facebook all the time?
I did a soft survey at the office today, staff and patients.

Al N Most of us want to be judged based on our "intentions" rather than our actions...do we offer the same level of grace and understanding to others that we expect for ourselves???

And people go on this site. My assistant, hygienist, and first patient go on EVERY DAY. What?!!
They claim they are going to see what their family is up to. My front desk person and second patient go on once a week.
I don't know how many friends I have on Facebook, but it is something like 250. If I sat on Facebook and watched all the stuff coming in from just 250 people. It is so stupid. I am sorry I can't.

Rhonda put her contact in wrong.
Steve says "TGIF"
Lynette says they hate it when Facebook changes their format.
Chuck just bought a pig for his farm.

Are we really serious about this?

But this blog was supposed to be about Marketing on Facebook. But as I went to my Homepage and looked for stuff to write about things just kept coming in. I just scratch my head.
A couple of dentists posted stuff, and I am thinking to myself, "it is Friday, probably their day off and they are either at work doing paperwork and on Facebook or at home (which is even worse) on Facebook.

My friends are trying to market their practices on Facebook.
Tell me how you use Facebook?
Are you on it all the time? Tell me your approximate age.
What do you use Facebook for? Is it productive?
And if you think I am way off base I want to know that too.
Maybe I am missing something. Enlighten me, but don't be mean.

I almost forgot my rule of Facebook is I don't "Friend" any of my old girlfriends. Really I try not to "Friend" women period. I know it is stupid, but out of respect to my wife and I know not everyone has pure intentions. Look people at church have affairs too. I just don't want to put myself in tough situations.
I will get a "Friend request" from a woman, and I don't know who they are, so I ignore it.
Then a week later I will get a "friend request" from the same woman and this time it is with a message, "Are you going to be my friend or what?"....ignore again.
If I don't know you, and I don't know where you know me from....plus I usually never check my Facebook account so why do you want me as a friend anyway?

Please enlighten me,
I will follow up on Wednesday.
Have a great weekend
john

Bill Strupp

Hi all,

Real quick before I get into it. I finished The Last Lecturer and I have to say I was disappointed. I didn't like it for a lot of reasons. I will tell you real quick. How can you have a lecture basically about dying and not talk about what happens to you when you die.
Maybe I am saying this wrong. The book was about his life. It was about how he dreamed things when he was a kid and how he made them all happen as an adult. He talked about all his successes in life. He talked about how he and bunch of students that have hit the big time.
Not once did he talk about heaven. It was sad really. I kept thinking to myself, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul." HE IS GOING TO DIE. Who cares that you were able to work at NASA for a summer? Who cares that you worked for Disney working on the first virtual experience ride. WHO CARES. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. The Bible says, "Your works are like filthy rags to me." It is really sad.
I'm thinking about it, and I don't think I have like a book in a long time. Maybe it is me.
I started to read a book called Beyond Belief: Finding the strength to come back. This is an autobiography of Josh Hamilton. He is the baseball player that is a crack addict. He was the one that hit the 28 home runs in the home run derby.
It is an easy read because he uses very easy words. He talks about how when he was a senior in high school his English teacher told him that if he would sign 12 baseballs for him he would give him an A and he wouldn't have to do any work. Hence the easy words.
I saw a great movie this weekend on Netflix...it was called A Perfect Getaway. Worth the rent.

Topic of the day,
I now have a new favorite lecturer and his name is Bill Strupp.
You know I have had some issues with some lecturers in the past. You know my big thing is identifying with the guy. A lecturer is typically either a guy that gives a lecturer and then goes behind the curtain never to be seen again or is he like Bill Strupp.
Let me give you a for instance, or two. He starts off the lecture by telling you that he has big time ADHD so he is going to move fast. He says, "so if you have a question just ask it." He goes on to say to yell "QUESTION". He wanted to answer your questions and was happy to do it...imagine that.
He also tells us before the lecture starts that he has rented a room on the water across the street at the local yacht club. He says, "I will have all the beer and wine you can drink and all the shrimp you can eat." He went on to say that his wife made the cocktail sauce herself.
WHAT?!!!
The course was $1300. I counted 255 people in the audience. That is like $330,000 (for a two day course....damn.)
So I think they could afford to buy the cocktail sauce? Yeah, but that is the kind of people they seemed to be.
So immediately my guard went down. If you want to know why my guard is up so high please see my blog on Frank Spear.
http://agdblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/frank-spears.html and
http://agdblogs.blogspot.com/2008/03/frank-spears-continued.html

So my guard is down and he says, "why should you listen to me?" He says, "Not because I am the founding father of such and such or that I am a member of the muckity muck club. No, it is because I have done 48,000 units of crown and bridge."
Damn that is impressive. I started to count up what I have done and it is not even a 3000.
Okay so now he has my guard down and he has told me his real credentials.
Now I can listen.
So I start to listen and it is like I am listening to my friend. He is talking in a way that is not like, "I was talking to the president of this company and we came up with a formula that we think is going to work". It was more like this is what works in my hand.
Now, not everything he says I agree with. Not everything he says I am going to do.
But when he says he is working with something and it is working for him....I believe him.
He does his dentistry like I would do mine.
You know the expression, "I don't care how much you know until I know how much you care."
Well this resonated with me. I could tell he really cared about his patients. Sometimes when he was telling us about a case it became more about the patient's story instead of the dentistry.
Oh, remember the happy hour thing at the yacht club? All the patients that he showed in the slide presentation, he invited.
So you saw his patients roaming around the happy hour.
I have to tell you he restored my opinion about CE guys.
Here is the kicker for him. I imagine he is doing pretty good for himself. Let's say his overhead on his lecture is 80%. I mean is he really making $66,000 for the weekend. Damn.
So then he goes on to tell us that he now has a partner. A 31-year-old dentist from Kentucky.
They meet and greet the patients together (even though they are all coming in to see Dr. Strupp) and they treatment plan together. Dr. Strupp does most of the closing and when it is time to work...the young partner starts the work.
The kid numbs them up, the kid removes all the old dentistry, the kid removes all the decay, the kid does all the build-ups (Dr. Strupp is really into building up), the kid does the initial prepping and then ol' Bill comes in and does a "fine-tuning" of the preps.
Damn.
He didn't push a single product in the whole two days. His material was good. His delivery was refreshing. I liked him.
I e-mailed him yesterday, and he e-mailed me back in about an hour.
Damn.
His lecture was about complex cases. All he talked about was full mouth reconstructions.
That is great for him, and it is great to learn about it for the 2 or 3 I might see in a year.
But ever since I have been back, two days now, I have heard "I hope I am not getting x-rays today because they really aren't in the budget."
So my clientele are just regular people. My peeps are being hit hard by the economic down turn. Some of my patients can't afford x-rays and you know what...I am still honored to be their dentist, and if I have to put an IRM in that hole for a couple of months for them to afford the filling I will.
So I loved hearing Dr. Strupp, but it is what it is. When I do do another large case I will be more equipped, but for now it is going to be "No, Mrs. Jones it is okay for us to wait on your x-rays this time."

Have a great Wednesday
john

The Climb

OK, the long expected plunge photos are here. I know each of you spent the weekend waiting anxiously to see these pictures - sorry I'm not better looking ;) Also as a shout out to my peeps at headquarters, I am wearing my AGD Foundation shirt.










































Yes, I did it. I ran a 5K in the snow and then jumped into a lake - and along the way helped Special Olympics of Kansas by raising $620 (thanks to all who donated). It was a cold day, "the sea was angry my friend", 24 degree air temperature at plunge time. The water was a balmy 27 degrees. Now someone with more physics knowledge than me is going to have to explain how water can get below the freezing point - but I can tell you it was cold ("I WAS IN THE POOL"). It felt every bit of 27degrees.

Now, permit me if you will, a bit of midwestern boasting. There are 2 plunges in the Kansas City metropolitan area so a total of approximately 2,000 people jumped into 27degree water when it was 24 degrees outside. No one got hurt and nothing got cancelled. In Maryland, they had a plunge with 15,000 people on the same day but they cancelled it because the water was 36 degrees and the air temperature 29 and people were getting hypothermia. I'm not saying we're tougher, I'm just sayin. . .well, come on, my daughter plunged last year and the water was 33 degrees.

Come on Maryland, that close to D.C. and you can't stand a little cold water in your face. Or maybe the recent election results have been enough of a cold water plunge for that area of the country. (btw, if you are taking that seriously at all, lighten-up).

Now for the sappy dental-related thoughts from the weekend.

You might not be able to tell from looking at my pictures, but I love to run. I also love to eat but that is another story.

As a business owner, running is my release. It gives me long stretches of time to clear my head and think only about the next step. Now when you run you become intimately familiar with the slope of the terrain upon which you are running. You notice the slightest shift in slope, you find elevation changes that are too subtle for a car passenger to notice but that require you to push just a little harder.

On Saturday, before the plunge, I "ran" in the 5K race. I finished in 33 minutes but the key is that I finished. I set a goal and I saw it through. It really was no different from when I ran 39 miles last January in the Disney Goofy Challenge - I set a goal and I saw it through. Each of those races had the exact same issue, I had to start running by putting one foot in front of the other. Then I had to keep running, period.

Now for the sappy part. I am an artist at heart. I am a musician and music affects my moods remarkably. I use music throughout the day for motivation or for introspection. I have certain music I listen to when I have a stack of bills to pay and certain music I will listen to when I have a difficult case coming up. I also listen to music when I run, not loud, just background noise that actually helps me to focus on the task at hand.

In the race on Saturday I was listening to my daughter's ipod. Now, she is 11 and has excellent taste in music but I am going to use her as the excuse for why I was listening to Miley Cyrus' song "The Climb" in the last 3/4 mile of the race as I was ascending the last little hill of the course. Now, if you haven't heard that song - go out and get it. It is a great song and that young lady is remarkably talented. The lyrics to the chorus say "there's always gonna be another mountain, I'm always gonna want to make it move, there's always gonna be an uphill battle. . .doesn't matter how fast I get there, doesn't matter what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb."

Oh yeah, 38-year-old husky guy plodding up a hill with tears in his eyes as he is reflecting on the climb involved in starting a business. We set goals, we go to seminars on practice management, we go to wealth seminars and retirement planning seminars but the truth is there is no shortcut - starting a business and keeping it going is a mountain that cannot be moved, it must be ascended. During that ascent you are going to notice every change in the slope. It will be easier at times and more challenging at times. You may slide backwards at times. There will always be those who chose not to climb the mountain who drive by and say, "that doesn't look hard but I don't want to climb it when I can drive around the mountain". And that's fine but don't dare try to tell me what the slope feels like when you are in the car, get out and try it yourself.

Ultimately, we climb not because of what is at the top - I can't even see the top. We climb because we want to see if we can.

And so we start.

We put one foot in front of the other and we keep moving. . .


have a great week,

ric

Friday is the new Monday

Don't panic, you didn't oversleep by 3 days.

It really is Friday.

However, the good Dr. G is increasing his smarts at a conference today and asked me to blog for him.

Haven't the guest blogs been great. Makes me want to return to dental school and move to Canada. OK, I'm kidding about the dental school part - just writing that made my eye start to twitch. The Canada part I'm serious about. It is really interesting how different dentistry can be on the other side of an imaginary line.

Well, as I sit here at home writing this blog it is 15 degrees outside and a dusting of snow is on the ground. The forecast for tomorrow at Noon CST is for 18 degrees. That matters not to you, I understand, but to me tomorrow's forecast is important because that is Plunge Day: the day I hurl myself into a public lake raising money for Special Olympics. I will have pictures on Monday's blog. In the meantime, here is the funniest polar plunge I have ever seen - it's like Punk'd on an international scale.




I love Fridays, have I mentioned that before. I'm off on Fridays and so is Susan, so when the kids are in school we get to spend lots of time together on Fridays. Of course, when I say I am "off" we business owners mean "not seeing scheduled patients" because I am almost always in the office on Friday. Paying bills, cleaning off my desk, organizing the office, seeing emergencies. You don't work less as a business owner, you just don't have someone telling you to work more. But the work never really ends.


You ever have one of those weeks where you feel like you spent the week having to be the boss? What I mean is, most weeks the office runs smooth, everybody does their job, patients come and go with happy smiles and no complaints. Then you hit weeks like this one. Staff needs some redirection (don't say that to a patient, don't change the schedule without asking me, etc.) and patients get confused about their bills and how insurance pays. Those weeks are exhausting.


I am what I consider to be a common-sense manager. I hire employees that have a good work ethic and common sense. If they run late one morning, I don't have to pull them into the office and explain the importance of being on time - they know and it doesn't happen again (remember I have 4 operatories in 1400 sq. ft. and 5 staff - we get to talk to each other a lot).

However, there are some things that employees do that fall into the category of "business owner common sense". Those are the things I have to address with them individually and quickly because they have no concept of why what they said or did is wrong.

For instance, apologizing to patients for the "crazy schedule" when the patient was seen on time and left on time - they never saw the running around behind the scenes ("pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, I am the great and powerful OZ"). Or wanting to change the schedule because they don't understand concepts like payroll costs versus production (i.e., I don't need 2 hygienists waiting around for a set of patients that can be seen by 1 hygienist).


It is at times such as these that I am glad that I can honestly say that I never ask my staff to do anything that I have not done. Sometimes they forget because they were not here in the beginning before I had a hygienist. I went 18 months doing my own perio. I had days where I saw 10 new patients or had 3 patients scheduled in 2 chairs over 70 minutes for 3 routine exam/cleanings and they were in and out on time.


It can be done.


It may not be fun and I may not want to do it every day, but it can be done.


People don't always realize that sometimes the most exhausting part of owning a small business is being the cheerleader: Motivating your staff to work smarter, to stay energetic, to make sure patient care comes first - all while presenting an air of calm. Employees may say TGIF - but so do business owners, albeit for different reasons.


have a great weekend,


ric

Just a lot of nothing

I know it is Wednesday and you are expecting great stuff from me. I have had 5 days to think about today.
I have a couple of things to say, but not much, so here goes.

I finished the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.
I started reading this book because a guy I really like recommended it to me. He said it was life changing. I finished it and nothing. I was waiting for this epiphany and my life to change but nothing. It was like reading his journal. Like he would sit down at the end of the week and write a chapter about what he learned this week. It just started and then it just finished. No plot, no real climax, it just was.
So now that I am finished I am going to see this guy again, and he is going to ask me what I thought. When a guy says the book is LIFE CHANGING and I don't remember a thing about it, what do I say to him. I think I am going to lie.
Now along the same lines is I brought him my book The Glass Castle and told him that this was my favorite book of the year. And I went to him two weeks later and he said he hadn't started it yet.
Now I have lent this book to 3 people and not a single person liked it. I was like these people are idiots. That book was unbelievable.
So he told me last week that he downloaded the book and is listening to it on his iPod.
I said, "Oh" like I knew what he was talking about.
Please someone tell me what he meant. Can you go to itunes and download a book?
Aren't we losing the whole reason for having books? It is called READING not LISTENING.
I am reading a book called The Last Lecture.
I think I told you about it. It is a short book and a real easy read. I will have it finished by Friday.
Speaking of Friday, I will not be here. I am going to see Dr. Bill Strupp in St. Pete. It is all day Friday and all day Saturday. It is called Simplifying Complex Cosmetic and Restorative Dentistry (that is, I am banking on one day doing a complex or restorative case again).
Dr. Ric is on for Friday so the blog will go on.
Then on Saturday I am rushing back to Orlando for MONSTER JAM at the Citrus Bowl.
This year my daughter wants to go. So I am going and I am taking 4 children.
I will tell you about it next week. I will bring my camera.
So I don't know if I have told you but my daughter Madison is something special. I don't necessary have a favorite but if I did...
She is very smart (I am not joking when her pediatrician told us she was very advanced and we should consider finding her a special school) and very self-motivated.
So when you start getting older and you are looking at your kids and trying to see who is going to be successful enough to take care of you, Madison is my bet.
She comes home and does her homework with no issues. I ask her to do something and she does it. She likes to read and understands herself. For example, when she is tired she says, "I am going to bed" even though it might be 6 pm (and she goes to bed at 8:30).
Now when we are talking about her future, I am always talking about big stuff. For instance, she said she wanted to own a pet store when she gets old (she loves animals), I will say something like, "Why don't you first become a veterinarian and then buy your pet store?"
On Saturday my wife went to Costco and took Madison along and you can imagine my surprise when Madison came home and made a big announcement...."I know what I want to do when I grow up."
I said, "Awesome, what is it?"
And she pumped out her chest and said, "I want to man one of the food sample booths at Costco."
I did the best I could and said, "That is so awesome, you are going to be so good at that."
$75,000 in private school education before college and these are her aspirations.
Maybe it is time for a parent/teacher get together.
Speaking of parents and teachers. My son, Luke, you know the self-proclaimed "awesome" kid, is having an issue.
He was so upset last night. He claims that his teacher is being mean to him and picking on him.
Now we have come to a crossroad in our parenting.
Do we say, "Damn that teacher. How dare her be mean to this kid who we think is the best kid in the world"? Or do we say, "Luke, I am sorry dude. It is time to buck up and deal with it.
Now I am the ladder type of parent.
I became that way because I always had to deal with my own problems when I was in school. My parents cared but I was kind of self-sufficient. See my parents were spending most of their time dealing with my rebel older sister. So when I had a teacher that "didn't like me" there was no going to mommy and telling on the teacher.
Now my wife is the exact opposite. She wants to go running to the teacher and ask her what is up.
So there was a lively discussion at the dinner table last night. My wife tells Luke that she is going to talk to the teacher and I say, "What are you going to say?"
Luke was telling us that the kids get together and they are asked to keep their voices down and work together. So, my son, while crying (tool of manipulation) tells us that while he was imploring his group to quiet it down and he was getting on them about not working together she pointed him out and took him out of the exercise.
Now probably what happened is Luke says to the group, "HEY WE HAVE TO STOP PLAYING AROUND AND WORK!" while they were suppose to working quietly. He was being loud, plain and simple. It doesn't matter what he said...he got busted.
Now what he hears from the teacher is, "I don't like you and I think you are a brat so get out."
Whose fault is it? Well it's Luke's. If he doesn't want to be busted for talking too loud then he shouldn't be loud. I don't care if you are praising Jesus, just do it quietly.
And Luke, like I said before, is a "golden child" and a master manipulator. This is a deadly combination.
He does most things half-ass and tells you he did it. Go clean your room. He goes into his room and comes out in about 30 seconds. You go in his room and one piece of clothing has been moved, not cleaned. But if you ask him, he would say that he cleaned his room.
So his impression of what happens is very tilted toward Luke.
But this being said, most kids want an advocate. They want to know that their parents are going to back them, go to bat for them.
I mean, I want that.
So somehow we have to let Luke know that we love him and will always be there for him but just not this time. Who knew parenting would be so hard. And I think it is going to get harder.
For instance, I had a parent come in and her 19-year-old daughter is in college three hours away in Boca. She said she had to go to the hospital last week. She said her blood pressure was up. She was having heart palpitations and stuff. She went to the emergency room and they didn't find anything after all sorts of tests.
Then again last night she was having the same kind of symptoms. So what is at the top of your diagnosis? Let me remind you of the story...19-year-old away from her family for the first time, at college. DRUGS. Maybe NoDoz or some Sudafed. Or maybe some greenies or some reds.
Maybe she got drunk for the first time, but who knows.
I asked the mom, "Is she doing any drugs?"
And of course she said, "No, she doesn't do anything like that."
YEAH, RIGHT!
Neither did I until I went to college.
I have said too much.

Have a great Wednesday.
John

New perspective

Hey all,
In our efforts for you not to get bored with just my (and Dr. Ric's) writing I wanted to spice this thing up. I had the pleasure of getting a comment from a dental student and I jumped all over that.
I wanted to hear more about dental school. I wanted to hear what the professors were like. I wanted to hear how they are being educated. I wanted to hear if it is still dog eat dog like it was when I was in school.
This is this ghostwriters first time and will give us just the tip of the iceberg today. I am hoping this type of blog catches on and he/she will write for us and go into more depth next time.
Read it, I think you will like the style and the innocence.
I hope it brings you back to an awesome time in your life....now that it is over.

Hello!
To preface this post, let me start by saying that I am dental student.
Yes, you read that right, student. Maybe that brings back incredible memories of first patients, celebrating new life milestones with your classmates – birthdays, weddings and babies, or life-long friendships. Or maybe that makes you shudder thinking of late nights of studying, stressing over national board scores or trying to meet requirements. If you are of the former, hang with me, because those aspects of dental school haven’t changed. If you are of the latter, still hang with me, but those stressors still haven’t changed.
So why I am here?
The last week of December found me sitting down at a computer, taking my Part 1 of national boards. 400 hundred questions in 7 hours – you know the drill. For the past weeks leading up to my exam, I had been eating, sleeping and breathing with study cards and notes. My social life had waned and I had started to lose touch with what was going on in the outside world (I am only slightly kidding with that last statement.) With boards over and Christmas break upon me, I finally got to spend lots of quality time with family and friends.
One night I dragged out my computer to see what was happening in the real world and my other world – the dental world. Stumbling across this blog was one of the highlights of break. I fervently read through the archives, trying to see what dentists in the “real world” are up to.
As dental students, that is often one of the things we like to ask our professors and those practicing dentists – how are things done in the “real world.” In school, we learn to do things the textbook (read the long and stepwise way) because we need a solid foundation to build from, but students still love to find out how things really go down in practice. I digress.
So anyway, I sent this blog an email and here I am, today’s friendly ghostwriter. This is going to be a crazy busy semester with classes. Practicing dentists – do you even remember what some of your dental classes were? If you can, props to you, because I can hardly remember what I took in college…

Oral pathology, oral surgery, endo, dentures, cased-based learning and removal partial dentures are on deck, and you better believe I am fist-pumping excited about what I get to learn. That’s right – excited. Giddy, to say the least. Dental school continually becomes more competitive to get into, and each day I try and remember how lucky I am to be able to chase down my dreams of becoming dentist. On the days I see interviewees touring my school, I am always grateful that the “getting into dental school” phase of my life is over. At age 23, it has been a dream nearly 10 years in the making when I realized early in high school what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
It seems fitting with it being 2010 to celebrate my almost 10 year anniversary of wanting to be a dentist with a group of those who care about dentistry. For those in practice and a student no more, maybe you breathed a sigh of relief that you are not in my scrubs. For those non dentists, you too probably breathed a sigh of relief that you are not in my scrubs because you don’t like saliva. Or needles. Or blood. At least you are still breathing and hopefully thinking of dreams in your life that you have accomplished or are on the road to accomplishing as well.
Thank you for reading and thank you to Dr. John for letting me share my thoughts.
May your 2010 be filled with blessings.

I loved that part of my life. People kept telling me these are the best years of your life and I didn't believe them. But now I want to go back. I want to go back to 2 patients a day. I want to go back to "that will be $25 for those 3 fillings" . I mean, I love my life now but those days were awesome.
I am so glad this ghost writer can bring me back. I hope you liked it.

Have a great weekend,
john

Ps If you live in another country and you want to give your opinion on dentistry we would love to have you.