2010 in review

Happy New Year!

I know you missed me. I missed you too. I hope you all had a great Christmas break (holiday) and a happy new year.

You know, we are starting our fourth year of the blog. That means we just finished 3 years. We have a lot to be proud of. I think it is going great (and I know those endorsements are right around the corner). Our numbers a really good. One week this year we had over a 1,000 readers (yes, I track those things).

One thing I would like to improve is the comments. First of all, I would like more comments. I write the blog so most of you don't feel like you are on an island, but without comments, I am the one that feels like I am on the island. And when I do get comments, so of them are kind of venomous. I would like not to tick people off this year. I know that I can't please everyone, but I still would like to try.

Anyway, to start the year I thought I would review what we did last year. A week ago, or so I started to re-read all the blogs from 2010. I have read through July so far and I want to talk about what I have read.

First and foremost, I definitely have diarrhea of the fingers sometimes, so I feel for you. But all in all, I was really pleased with the content. There was a lot of dental stuff talked about. There was some funny stuff and there was some good family stories/drama mixed in.

So with out further adieu, let's review. I will do this as briefly as possible...

I read a ton of books and I watched a ton of movies. It was a very average year for books but I did see some good movies. Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Law Abiding Citizen... but I have to say that the one thing that stuck out the most was the movie Precious.

Starting off the year we talked about my Christmas Party. Always a touchy subject but I think I did a nice job. And, as you may remember, I had a vasectomy over last year's break and I wrote a great blog (if I don't say so myself) on the subject. Instant classic, so if you haven't read those, you must go back. Then there were some follow ups with returning the "samples" that were quite humorous.

We had a couple of guest bloggers. We had our friend from Canada write about what it is like practicing dentistry above the border, eh. We had another guest tell us about how he went to peer review. We had a guest blogger tell us about how he had a patient say he worked on the wrong tooth and the argument that ensued. We even had a dental student write a blog on what it is like in school nowadays (I have seen her in AGD Impact a couple of times since then. Then we had a past president of the AGD write on his take on the HealthCare Bill.

I also wrote some blogs about my family. I told you that my daughter (who I think is the smartest of the bunch) came home from shopping and told me she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She wanted to be the person that gives out food at the grocery store. I am so proud. I wrote a blog about my son's basketball camp and how he learned what a virgin was (and some other key terms).

I went to a computer/parenting course and wrote a blog on the dangers looming on the computer. I wrote a blog on my crazy adventure about running the Snickers Energy Bar Marathon in Albany, GA. And I told you about my vacation to North Carolina in the summer time. Speaking of, I have lots of pictures from the mountains that I will get to next week.

I wrote a lot about the office, too. About how I hated Facebook, then how I started an office Facebook page (I knew I had some schizophrenia in me). I told you how I went to another dentist's office and talked about me buying his practice and he told me to get lost (in not so many words). I wrote a blog about Dentistry from the Heart (which is scheduled for March 4 of this year).

I told you I had a conversation with the president of a company about my troubles with one of their products. We talked about working on a drunk patient and about how I lost a family of nine because I wouldn't write off a $2.15 bill.

I told you how I have tried to market my practice with my3zips.com and marketing through a community magazine (nothing is working). I wrote a blog on a patient asking me to lie to an insurance company to benefit him. I told you that I have found out some bad things about other dentists and I was tired of being quiet and I was going to start whistle-blowing.

We talked about what mode of communication is acceptable with your staff. For example, when is texting acceptable. I talked about the ins and outs of working with your dad. I reminisced about my first associate job.

I showed you some cases, like the boxer's mother (oh, that was a good one) and my assistant's brother who got about $50,000 worth of dentistry. I also showed you when I helped that guy who was coming out of prison and wanted a new look on life, and I gave it to him.

Remember when I got my tire fixed for free? I wrote about how that impacted me. And of course the Brican America stuff (don't get me started, I am trying not to cuss).

And that was it for 2010 up to August. I have more reading to do, so I will talk about the second half on Friday. Then back to more thrilling blogs in 2011.

Do you remember a blog that you liked the most? One you thought was the funniest?

Hope you are having a good first week back. I am stressed that it is so slow. But I guess this is a topic for another blog.

Welcome back - and I really did miss you.

john