I am an entrepreneur. Believe it or not, that’s a little hard for me to say. Today I was writing an email to a friend who is my client’s daughter. We don’t always become friends with our clients’ or patients’ families, do we? Unlike the days in dentistry, when I felt like I wanted to keep some level of separation from my patients in our relationships, now I get to become great friends with all of my clients. They share their personal lives, and when appropriate, I even get to connect with their families. I feel so grateful for it....
Dentists should never clean teeth. If you’re unhappy in dentistry, you should buy a practice. Those who can’t do, teach. We dental professionals have some strong opinions, don’t we? Statements like these create our reality about dentistry and have become a defining part of our dental culture. For decades, we have perpetuated beliefs about the way dentistry SHOULD be– without really questioning other possibilities. This messaging was passed down to us in school and in practice. Luckily, today more people are speaking up and challenging these long-held beliefs: The only way to be successful in dentistry is to own a...
Don’t you hate it when your patients blame you for something that wasn’t your fault? My tooth didn’t hurt until YOUUU worked on it. You put my crown on backwards, and now it doesn’t fit! You never told me I had to pay for these x-rays. Or how about the patient who refuses to wear the night guard they wanted, but it’s your fault? We know how that goes… your patient comes to you desperate for a solution to end their headaches. You notice that they have serious bruxism issues, and you recommend a night guard. You spend extra time...
Want to know my best tip for finding alternative careers for dentists? Stop asking everyone else what they do outside of dentistry! I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but the truth is, the question never works. Instead, you end up with a list of ideas, none of which sound good at all. I see this happen all the time in my Facebook group and with my clients. Plus, that used to be me when Google was the only resource available. I would find myself on the endless roller coaster, vacillating between obsessive googling of other career options and deciding to settle...
Dentistry is a great career, isn’t it? Or at least it has that reputation. You get to help people and change lives and be a respected member of society. Plus, everyone needs dentistry and always will. It’s not going anywhere, so you can collect a steady paycheck forever, really. The stability of dentistry makes this career a no brainer for many. That’s the great part about this career and a main reason many of us chose it. But is dentistry really as stable as we think? I talk to a lot of dentists who tell me that this stability and...
I originally wrote this blog post on November 15, 2013. It was 2 years after I had officially quit dentistry. After blogging for some time, I met the first of many other dentists who had also experienced life after dentistry. I was so excited to meet Rick, a dentist and fellow blogger. A lot has changed since then. I no longer hide behind the screen name, Lolabees, and Rick has also evolved his own career. That is the great thing about taking that leap the first time– once you do it, you never fear changing again. Check out his guest...
Do you remember your first crush? They often don’t work out so well. Maybe you were too afraid to tell anyone, and you found your crush and your best friend holding hands. Perhaps all the other kids in class made fun of you when they found out. Or maybe your crush embarrassed you with rejection in front of the whole school. Part of the fun and part of the problem with crushes is that we create an ideal image of the other person. We project onto them who we want them to be without really knowing who they are. It’s...
Don’t you just love a good overnight success story? It could involve the dumb luck of getting “discovered” by a talent agent while being featured on a Jumbotron at a football game (yes, I’m actually referencing Pamela Anderson here on my blog.) Or it might be like the recent story of the nurse whose TikTok video lead her to a new career. After her interior design transformation of her sister’s college dorm room went viral, she decided to leave nursing to become an interior designer. No matter how it happens, when we look in from the outside, these huge leaps...
Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in with your dental community? I felt that a lot throughout my decade in practice. Whenever I showed up to local CE or dental society events, I felt invisible. It was hard to genuinely connect with other dentists within the community, and I didn’t think I had much in common with most of the people I met. So I slowly pulled away from the social aspects of the dental community. After all, I wasn’t getting much satisfaction from it. Plus, I felt tired of eating, sleeping, breathing, and discussing dentistry all the...
Please welcome my next guest blogger. This dentist has a great story to share and, for now, wishes to stay anonymous. Which experiences described below do you relate to most? People often ask, “did you always know you wanted to be a dentist?” My answer is usually something like, “No, I did it on a whim”. Although I haven’t heard many such admissions, I think there are dentists out there who relate. We essentially winged it, or chose dentistry for some trivial reason, owing in part to limited life experience. Add to this the inability to truly gauge how much...
