Lee elaborates on using dual-cured versus light-cured resin cements.
If you cannot see this video, please visit speareducation.com/blog.
Resin Cements
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Monthly Archives: April 2010
Undercover Dentist
The TV show, Undercover Boss, has become something of a phenomenon lately. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about CEOs posing as front-line workers in their own organizations to see what life is like from the perspective of their ground-level employees. No doubt part of its success comes from appealing to peoples’ sense of moral justice by showing an out-of-touch corporate leader having to experience life among the rank-and-file.
It’s not that I think this particularly relates to dentists. You certainly know what the people on your team do (and I doubt many of you could go undercover as a hygienist in your practice without being “made”). I, too, am proud to say that I am intimately familiar with the work of the people in my organization (and anyway, the mustache and accent would give me away if I tried to go undercover). Still, there is an enduring lesson to be learned from this show: the idea that you can’t really serve others in a relationship until you are able to put yourself in their shoes.
This hit home for me recently when I attended a recent TED conference featuring notable speakers from a variety of backgrounds. I’ve always felt that I had a good sense of what the people in my audiences expect (and I still think that); nevertheless, it was instructive for me to experience an event like that as a paid participant rather than as a speaker. Just milling about with others in the crowd, watching the proceedings from the darkened part of the auditorium, gave me a sense of how people experience my seminars. I did feel a little like I was going undercover.
So my question to you is: What is it like when you, as a dentist, get your dental work done? How does it feel to be a patient? Have you ever learned anything—good or bad—about providing dentistry from the experience of being in the chair with your mouth open? I invite your comments.
Browne Part 2
Last time we talked about Kevin Browne’s patient with the short number 8 or long number 9 depending on your perspective. Kevin noticed the bunched up tissue on the palate, even in the face of normal probe depths and immediately suspected an occlusal issue
This is the patient moving into right lateral. Notice the relationship of #8 and #25 in this crossover. Below is the left crossover position, canine and central in contact on the incisal edges of the teeth.
Kevin put the patient into an occlusal orthotic and refined the occlusion to give #8 freedom from the crossover interferences.
After only 3 months of appliance therapy the right central erupted back into a more normal position. The tooth had been intruded by the constant force exerted on it during parafuction.
Guess occlusion does matter…
Thanks again for all the comments and thanks to Kevin for the case!
Ciao from the Amalfi Coast!
With the breathtaking Amalfi Coast as a backdrop, Frank recounts some of the travel obstacles he’s overcome to meet his lecturing commitments over the years.
If you cannot see this video, please visit speareducation.com/blog.
The Most Costly Part of Your Facility
I have a new article out in the recent edition of Dental Entrepreneur—if you haven’t seen it yet, you can find it online here—and one of the messages in it that has been getting attention is my assertion that the most costly part of a dental facility is usually not an imaging system or CEREC 3D, or any technology for that matter. It’s a hallway.
It’s the hallway that patients walk down after leaving the operatory—and for some patients it becomes the hallway of lost commitments. When you were speaking face-to-face, and they agreed on treatment, they seemed convinced, even enthusiastic. Then the doubts start to take hold and by the time they emerge at the other end of the hall, their resolve is gone. They decide to “think about it” and the appointment goes unmade. Once they’re out into the world, with all the forces competing for their attention and their discretionary spending, that commitment they made in the chair is swiftly forgotten. And all this is happening while you are tallying up another “win” in your mind. You may not even know about the lost commitment until, maybe months later, you suddenly wonder: “what ever happened to…?” Who knows how many potential life-changing cases (for you and the patient) have been lost in this hallway?
This is one of the reasons I love chairside technology. Not only is it an indispensable integration tool—a central repository for records and images and schedules—but it also allows you to capitalize on the momentum of the “yes,” and lock it in on the spot. When the patient leaves the chair, they’re doing so with a finalized plan and a confirmed appointment. While you’re at it, find something you can do right now to begin the treatment process—even if it’s something small—so you can quickly change the patient’s mindset from a future hypothetical to a reality that has begun. That’s a powerful antidote to the curse of that dreaded hallway.
The Inspiration-Information Equation
Dentists, in my experience, tend to be rational, logical, analytical people. And the thing with people like that is that they tend to expect other people to be rational, logical, and analytical, and to respond to evidence and information the way they do. I’m not saying dentists don’t have a genuine emotional desire to help their patients, or that preparing and presenting comprehensive data is not a good idea (I think it’s imperative). What I am saying is that, when it comes to motivating patients to action, information is not enough.
When you think about it, the patient who presents with extensive work that needs to be done (unless it’s a trauma situation) falls into one of two categories. Either they haven’t been to a dentist in a long time, in which case they already suspect they need a lot of work; or else they have seen a dentist recently but didn’t accept treatment, in which case they know they need a lot of work. In any case, the important thing to recognize is that, because the concerns have accumulated incrementally over the years, these patients have likely grown accustomed to their dental health situation: They’ve learned to hide their smile, to chew differently, to compensate with softer foods, and so on. And they’ve learned how to deflect a dentist’s recommendations.
That’s why, for this patient—the patient who most needs your expertise—you need to provide at least two parts inspiration to one part information. And that inspiration comes in many forms: it can come from the type of atmosphere your facility projects (as many high-end retailers well know); it can come from visual aids, imaging, and other value-creation tools; it can come from your involvement in the community, that makes you a thought-leader to be followed; it can come from the example of the exemplary smiles on you and your team members (don’t ever underestimate the power of this first-hand testimonial evidence). The point is that the patient doesn’t just need to know his options—he needs to feel the need to act. By all means, prepare your information with scrupulous diligence. But don’t forget to work on your inspiration techniques as well, so that your most needful patients are primed and ready to really hear your message.
Models at Mach Speed
Tips from Lee on making accurate models in less than five minutes.
If you cannot see this video, please visit speareducation.com/blog.
Browne Part 1
This patient presented in the office of Dr. Kevin Browne, one of our Spear Faculty Club mentors. The patient’s chief complaint was that her previous dentist had done something wrong because one of her teeth had gotten longer since he put in her new crowns. (8-11 had been restored a few months previous to the appointment.)
Kevin, being the astute clinician that he is, diagnosed the issue after the periodontal exam was noted to be normal! There is slight mobility in the tooth, but all the teeth probe normally.
What is the diagnosis and how might we think about treating it? I have to tell you, I would never in a thousand years thought of what Kevin did. BRILLIANT, SIMPLY BRILLIANT!
So, what do you see and what would you do? Leave your comments below and we’ll reveal the answer in the next blog!
Feel the Tension
When was the last time you felt a sense of restless anxiousness about your practice, your clinical abilities, your career, your life? If your answer is that you’ve actually been quite content in all these areas for some time, that’s too bad. Because in my experience a little anxiety—creative tension, I call it—is absolutely necessary in motivating people to achieve great things.
I got a lot of great feedback—in the comments here, in direct emails, and on my Facebook page—to a recent post about the curse of natural talent. A lot of you really responded to the idea that natural ability can take you only so far—that it’s having the will and the discipline to push yourself continually that makes the difference in life.
Creating tension between today’s reality and tomorrow’s possibilities is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and you can create that tension in a number of ways: by reading books, by taking courses, or just by being around people who are living the reality you want to achieve.
To give a personal example: at first, I was reluctant to devote much time or energy to developing a social media strategy. But eventually I couldn’t ignore the great advances people were making in developing relationships in this new media, and I realized that I, as someone who has built a career on building relationships, had to get in the game. The gap I saw created a tension and now here I am blogging regularly, as well as maintaining a presence on Facebook and other venues. I could have made excuses to continue doing things as I always had, but that tension was there and it was overpowering.
Remember, though, that for most of us making use of this tension requires discipline. You have to make yourself accountable to getting consistently better, and that means designating a few days every quarter—12 days a year, maybe—to identifying where those gaps exist in your life and creating strategies that will allow you to use that tension to slingshot yourself to the next level.
Great Expectations
Assumptions, a wise person once said, are the termites of relationships. Another way of putting it is that most problems you’re likely to have in relationships—whether with your spouse, your kids, your team, or your patients—arise from mismatched expectations. You need your office manager to stay later one day to deal with a case and you assume she’ll have the dedication to her job to comply; meanwhile she assumes that you have an understanding that she has to leave by 5 p.m. Left unaddressed, small issues like this have a way of festering and metastasizing into bigger relationship-killers.
The answer, of course, is obvious, but it’s one we frequently overlook. Mismatched expectations almost always are a result of unspoken expectations, so being clear and precise up front can save a lot of unnecessary friction in the long run.
When interviewing for new front office staff, for example, once you have gone through the usual set of questions, try asking, “How will you know you are doing well in the job?” If you agree from the outset that she measures her success by the number of clients who arrive on time, are complete for payment on leaving, and are appointed ahead, you have just given her a powerful When interviewing for new front office staff, for example, once you have gone through the usual set of questions, try asking, “How will you know you are doing well in the job?” If you agree from the outset that she measures her success by the number of clients who arrive on time, are complete for payment on leaving, and are appointed ahead, you have just given her a powerful tool for self-accountability—and absolute clarity for your expectations. A few well-defined guidelines. No room for assumptions or misunderstandings. It really can be as simple as that.
