There, I said it. I hate dentistry… sort of.

When I was younger, I chose dentistry as my forever career because I loved smiles, and I wanted to work with people. I really liked people. I always considered myself social and friendly, and I was a good student who enjoyed math and science. Dentistry seemed like the perfect fit for me. As a patient, I always loved learning about my teeth, and the day I got my braces off, I loved the result. It seemed impossible that I would get to a point in my career where I would one day hate dentistry.

The other day I joined a Facebook group that is called I Love Dentistry, and that’s when it hit me: I hate dentistry, but I love dentists.

What happened?

When I first started out in practice, I liked it. My life in and outside of work was fun and exciting, and it felt like a giant adventure. It was really hard, but I expected that. I knew that I would need many hours of practice before it began to feel easy, so I remained patient and hopeful that my future would be great.

I’d often heard people say that anything worthwhile requires hard work, and that belief kept me going.

But, when I reached my 3rd year in practice, things didn’t feel easier. My courage to try new procedures began to waver, as I’d experienced the realities of dentistry. I learned that even when you do perfect work, you don’t always get perfect results. Dentistry works with nature, and things in nature are unpredictable and messy.

This lack of predictability began to take a toll on me.

I started to feel beat down and burnt out by the challenges of dentistry. On a daily basis, I worried about getting sued, and I was always afraid that patients would get mad at me. I began to resent my patients because I felt unappreciated, even after working so hard to help them.

I was officially burnt out, and I began to hate dentistry.

For a long time, I thought I hated people. I wondered what was wrong with me, and I thought that made me a bad person. Now I know that the sentiment was coming from my pain. I didn’t actually hate people– I just needed a break from them.

I needed to fully separate from clinical dentistry to realize that I didn’t hate people. It was patients that I didn’t like. Let me clarify… I liked the people who were my patients, but I didn’t like patients. I just didn’t like the dentist-patient relationship. It created a lot of pain for me.

Leaving dentistry taught me a lot about myself.

While I was in practice, I thought something was wrong with me. I watched everyone else love this career, and I judged myself for not being able to tolerate the stress of dental practice. My biggest fear was that no matter what I did for work, I would find something wrong with it. I worried that no matter what career I would choose, my problems would follow me.

Those beliefs kept me stuck.

Eventually I learned that I do like people and I do like dentistry– I just don’t like putting those two things together.

I discovered that just because I don’t like practicing clinical dentistry, doesn’t mean I don’t love the field. In fact, I can finally admit that I do love the profession again.

Leaving clinical practice behind was like getting a divorce. My career marriage suffered for so long, that I needed my space in order to feel the warm fuzzies again. Now I’m lucky that we get to remain great friends, and I love the profession in a way I never could when I was in the painful relationship.

Here’s one thing I’ve learned about myself: I need to feel connected to other people in order to feel fulfilled.

My purpose in everything that I do in life is connection. That means as long as my work and other interactions leave me with a sense of connection, I will feel satisfied.

Because of the nature of the dentist-patient relationship, I could never reach that connection.

Many dentists feel a true connection with their patients, but we all experience connection differently. It always felt like my patients and I had opposite agendas. They wanted to keep their money and stay out of my chair, and the very nature of my job was to do the opposite. In other words, in order to help them, I had to charge them money and put them in my chair.

That prevented me from feeling truly connected to them, even when we made great relationships.

When I talk to other dentists, I get to experience real connection– for me.

Because I felt so much pain being married to the wrong career, I am passionate about helping others find their own career happiness. A funny thing happens in dentistry… we think this has to be forever. We see it as the end goal, not part of the journey. It’s hard to break free from that thinking pattern. I know it all too well.

When I talk to dental professionals who feel this way, I get them. I feel their pain. When they hear me describe my own past experiences, they often feel like I’m in their heads. For me, that is true connection. We are on the same side, and we have the same agenda.

That is to help them find career happiness.

This connection allows me to genuinely love them. That’s what happens. I become friends with everyone that I work with. I see them, I understand them, and I get to want the best for them without the burdens I felt as a clinician.

At the same time, I know that they see me, they get me, and they know I am on their side.

For me, that is freedom, and that is love.