What I Learned From Our Survery

I don't know if I have told you, but there is more than meets the eye when it comes to this blog. We, the authors, write our blogs. Then we save them and send them off to the AGD, and they review the blogs.

They are tasked with making sure we don't offend anyone. They make sure we don't sound like idiots. And they clean up our grammar and mispronunciations. So sometimes I am really busy and sometimes they are really busy (and no, they don't have a staff member just sitting at their desk waiting for the blog to be finished). So if I get the blog in late or if I get it in and they are swamped, sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day to get the blog done. That is why you might have gone to the blog on Friday night and it wasn't there.

It would be great if I had a bunch of back blogs written so that if I was late, the AGD staff member could just use another one, but I like to fly by the seat of my pants. So sorry if there was something missing in your life when you hit the pillow on Friday. But just think: two blogs in two days. You know you like it.

Well, I wanted to talk about the survey. It told me a lot of things. I don't know about you, but I was very impressed by the return. Everyone seems very well grounded. There was an awesome range. We had a 27 year old and some as mature as 60.

What does that tell you about this blog? It is really reaching out to all folks. Not just the young, more technologically-advanced dentists, but dentists that have been around a long time that are still looking to get better. This blog has reader dentists from 6 months out of school to 34 years out. Pat yourselves on the back.

I found the younger guys are a bit more stressed at work. I didn't do the survey, but I am stressed at work. Of course, it is self-induced. If I was just a dentist and not a blogger and not a soon-to-be-lecturer (trying to take over the world), this job would be cake. I could drill, fill and bill all day and read my journals when I was slow. But I think being crazy busy is where I like my life. I say I don't, but I keep putting myself into crazy spots. I am starting to see who I am.
To all of you younger, stressed out dentists: we all went through the same thing. The uncertainty, the not knowing all the ins and outs, the wondering if it is going to get better, if you are going to get better.

Did I ever tell you guys that I almost quit dentistry? I was 5 years out of school and I hated dentistry. Like one of the dentists wrote, he/she loved dentistry but hated being a dentist. That is real folks. I hated doing it so much that I came home and asked my wife what she thought about moving back to Gainesville and me going back to school.

I wanted out. I loved doing dentistry, but totally sucked at being a dentist. Patients were complaining for the first time in my life. I was broke. I was reading magazines and it appeared that everyone except me had it all together. It was bad. All I can say to the young dentist is that it will get better. I do not know how to make it better, but it does get better. No one, and I mean no one, has it all together.

As far as hygiene, it seems that everyone except for one corporate dentist allows 50 minutes to an hour for their hygiene appointments. Wow. I am impressed. I do too.

I think we all kind of do dentistry in pretty much the same way. There was one dentist that does 600 crowns a year. But for the most part we are just doing what comes in (I am not judging, I am just saying). Being conservative and giving the patients a choice is what we are all doing.

The last question was ambiguous on purpose. It seems that we are all the same in this regard and I don't think that it differs much from our society. Paying the bills is great and everything after that is cool. We like doing what we do and being productive and helping people makes us feel valuable.

I have noticed that the more people I am helping and the more valuable I feel to society, the more money I am making. But it is usually not the money that makes us feel valued.

I have been thinking a lot about the new dentist lately. In 18 months, my associate is going to come to my office because my dad is going to be transitioning out. I know that the kid is going to want to buy in. But how? He has $200k in debt before he drills his first cavity prep. Then in two years, I am going to tell him that he if he wants a piece of this, it is going to cost him another $600k. He really isn't going to make enough to carry this kind of load. Is my practice worth that? A lot of dentists are selling their practices to corporate entities because they are the only ones that can afford to pay. I guess it is worth only what someone will pay for it. I will talk about it on Wednesday.

Have a great week. Thanks for being great readers.

john