Damn it, I am going to do it.

First and foremost I want to say I am sorry for the text problems on the last two posts.

I told you we at the AGD blog room are trying to give you the best blog possible. That means I write it and save it. Then it gets looked over, by the AGD staff, to make sure a couple of things. That we uphold the standard of the AGD, we don't hurt any one's feelings (I wish I had this a couple of years ago), and grammar and spell checking.

But blogger.com has some issues with the Saving and Editing process.

It seems every time I go back to a post it puts a space between each line. That means if you go back to it twice it will have a triple space between each line.

So I have to go down, delete a space, go down, delete a space...and so on. So two blogs ago I was half way through deleting spaces and accidental hit the ENTER button and it posted the blog.

Then on Wednesday I wrote the blog in WORD (windows) and then cut and pasted it onto Blogger.com. It looked great and then I posted it. Then looked at it and it was one complete run on paragraph.

It is kind of embarrassing for us but we promise we are working on it. We will get better.

As promised photos (double click on it and you will see actual size).



If you notice the IV in his hand. I forgot to tell you about some of the drama.

When he was born everyone was saying the word "merconia" or something like that.

Apparently, the baby can go poo-poo in the fluid he is surrounded by.

So he got the poo-poo water in his mouth.

This could be a big deal. So he had it in his mouth.

So like father like son...his is going to have a potty mouth (my assistant says, "He's a Gammichia, he will eat anything.")

So they whisked him away and did all these tests on him. His oxygen stats went below a certain threshold, and they took him to the "transition" room. This is one nurse per two babies. They give him straight oxygen and put him on antibiotics (hence the IV).

Then they watch him to see if he was going to crash or get better.

In both places they reassured me that everything was fine and this was just a precautionary measure. They said he looks great, and he should be back up in the regular nursery by the end of the day.

Well he was fine, and he was back in the regular nursery in 6 hours.

This is when he got his first bath (I asked the nurse to put his hair in a Mohawk), and I put his Gator clothes on.



Note all the back hair...real nice.

Okay I will talk about teeth today.

I was talking to my periodontist the other day. He says his schedule is not totally full.

Like, he said, next week I had a big opening in the morning on Wednesday and the afternoon fell apart.

I told my staff not to schedule me for the day.

I said, "What are you going to do?" He said that he was going to visit another periodontist office in West Palm (about 3 hours in a car). He said he doesn't get to see how others do perio very often.

I started to think what an awesome idea this was.

And I started to think that you don't need to be slow at the office to do this.

You all may know that I don't work on Mondays. This is probably the greatest thing I have ever done. I work about 44-48 hours a week. I just do it in 4 days.

And usually I don't have a thing to do on Mondays. (I mean, work wise. I spend quality time with the family. Go for a walk with my wife. Shop. Hang out with my friends at Home Depot. Go to the movies. Sit around and do nothing which is good for the soul).

I have time to do this.

I have talked to one of my dentist friends about office shadowing. Meaning, I would like him to come to my office, observe and see what he thinks about the way we do things (and vice versa).

How we greet people. How we bring people back. How we collect. How we do our Recare system. How we answer the phone. How we deliver treatment plans. How we run a morning huddle. How my staff interacts with one another. How my staff uses their down time. How we work our schedule. I can go on forever.

I am not talking about spending a lot of time. I am talking about a couple of hours. I am not going to ruin my day off. I am not going to cut into family time.

I think it would be so great for both parties. I think if I went to someone's office, whom I respected and wanted to learn from, I can get so much out of it. I would see how other people do it. I would learn how to evaluate his/her office, which would help me evaluate mine.

I gotta tell you I am not a good evaluator of my own practice. I mean I am kind of busy when I am here. I get in at 6:45 am and do dentistry and put out fires all day and then go home at about 5 pm. I don't get a lot of time to listen to the way my staff answers the phone. I don't have a lot of time to think about our systems.

I don't ever get to observe.

I mean I think about it a lot but...

Don't you all think this should happen?

Have you ever done it?

Well damn it...I am going to do it.

You know what I am going to do also, is I am going to pay my staff to do it too. I think we can learn so much from other's ideas. And one of my biggest problems is seeing something and communicating what I saw to my staff. So I think sending my staff will be even better.

I feel like all I want to do is be a good, successful dentist. I want people to want what I have to offer. I want to deliver a service that is second to none. But I don't know if I am doing this.

I can go to 100s of CE courses and it doesn't mean crap if it doesn't make my office run better. It doesn't mean anything if my systems are not right. If I am losing more patients than I'm bringing in.

So why haven't I done this?

I have to think I don't want to know if I am doing it well.

I am not bankrupt, and I guess that makes me feel successful. I don't want to change. I have always thought I do, but when it comes to the rubber meeting the road...I just sit here and write.
Well damn it, I am going to do it.

I am going to call a bunch of dentist I respect (if I don't call you don't get all paranoid) and tell them I am going to come to their offices for a couple of hours on a Monday. I will drop the kids off at school and in the time I usually come home and do nothing I will just observe someone's office.

That is it. Just sit and watch. This is not hard. If the dentist is drilling, I will be watching the staff. If the dentist is not busy, I will pick his/her brain.

Easy peesy.

Then what I might do is start something. I work on Fridays and most dentists don't. So that will open up some time for them to come to my office.

I am so excited about this.

I am doing this. But this Monday might not work for me. See I have a newborn at home. I am a bit behind on my reading, and I have a bunch of Netflix movies just sitting on the curio.

I told the kids I would go to their school and have lunch with them.

See what I mean...Damn it, I am going to do this.

Have a good weekend,

John

I know I have not talked about Tim Tebow and the Gators in awhile. I have really been in prayer for about 13 straight days.

It is going to be a great weekend. The Gators will be fine.

Oh, by the way, have you been watching the weather lately. It was 94 degrees yesterday here.

This weather sucks. I am running 20 miles tomorrow. I am sweating just thinking about it.