Story Hunting: An Integral Component of Dental Patient Engagement

I want to entice you to think for a moment: what do a stand-up comedian, a hairdresser, a seasoned journalist, a start-up founder, an existential therapist, an art dealer, and a dermatologist have in common?

At first glance, this exercise may seem challenging. If you were to give this some more profound thought, you could discover a level of anthropological connection between these individuals. However, in reality, the answer to this question is much more straightforward.

The actual commonality among these folks is that they all share a specific health care provider, and this person happens to be me. Incidentally, these individuals are random patients in our practice, and over the years, we have developed a special relationship with them, built on trust, patient engagement, and mutual respect. As a byproduct of this and paired with our curiosity to learn more about them, we discovered that their personal stories are fascinating and quite inspiring. To the degree that my partner, Dr. Jack Goldberg, and I decided to help spread their amazing stories. We embarked on (and actually are) a time-consuming, ambitious project: hosting a weekly podcast, inviting a different patient each time.

Reflections on dental patient engagement amid pandemic challenges

As many of you may know, for many years I’ve had the privilege of lecturing in various places around the world, which has allowed me to learn firsthand about different cultures. This experience has consistently led me to return home and share these learnings with my team, broadening our collective mindset and approach to dental patient engagement.

Nonetheless, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, travel to scientific meetings was halted, extending beyond the time when lockdown restrictions were lifted. This precluded the opportunity to benefit from exposure to different places and cultures. Then, one day, during our morning huddle while reviewing our patients for the day in our practice, it finally struck me. I told my team, “You know, I just realized that we do not have to travel to exotic destinations around the globe to expand our horizons and broaden our culture. The world actually comes to visit us every single day in the form of our patients.” Therefore, allocating time to deliberately inquire and actively listen to our patients became an extraordinary exercise in personal growth.

Yes, it’s that simple.

It’s common to hear jokes about dentists talking and asking questions to their patients while they are working in their mouths, as if all the time a patient spends in a dental office is in the operatory chair with their mouth open.

Furthermore, it is also common to hear that dentists are among the professionals who fall into the trap of the so-called curse of knowledge — a common cognitive bias where an individual unknowingly assumes that others have the background to understand what they are saying.

In other words, to put it bluntly, we talk too much, and patients often struggle to understand what we are saying about their condition. We are not known for our listening skills. 

We need to change the narrative. 

Let me digress for a minute, last year I was invited to lecture at the “Opening Plenary Session of the European Association of Osseointegration in Geneva along side with two world experts on animation. The session topic was “the Virtual Patient”; this concept refers to “A compilation of a series of data sets, from different acquisition tools, (an extraoral scanner, and intraoral scanner and a CBCT) merging them together in one software in order to diagnose and treatment plan therapy.

Needless to say that this concept is truly fascinating and timely, and I concur entirely with its clinical application (in fact during the lecture I included a few cases showing how we have a vertically integrated digital workflow in our office), however, I had to vehemently take a stand cautioning the audience that the concept may not only be “limiting” but it may distract clinicians from obtaining other data sets that are as important and relevant and need to be taken into account during the treatment planning stages.

Embracing patient-centered care

During the lecture, I included a few cases to illustrate our vertically integrated digital workflow in the office. However, I felt compelled to take a strong stance cautioning the audience. I emphasized that this concept might not only be limiting but could also divert clinicians from considering other equally important and relevant datasets during the treatment planning stages.

I am explicitly referring to the need to comprehend our patients’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral status. There is no scanner or technological device that, to this day, provides this crucial data. In my humble opinion, only by integrating these datasets along with all others can we truly design treatment with more predictive capability and get patients to buy into the implications of therapy. To unlock this data, we must engage in a thorough conversation with patients, where our active listening skills are paramount. Unfortunately, this aspect of therapy is rarely discussed on the main podiums at dental meetings.

The purpose of our podcast was twofold: to emphasize the importance for dentists to listen to patients and to help fellow healthcare professionals uncover the valuable insights and life lessons found in the stories of those who visit us daily.

Please do not misinterpret me as thinking that I expect everyone reading this to start their own podcast. I suggest that you and your teams embark on a daily, deliberate quest to learn more about your patients, their personal stories, struggles, and conquests. I can assure you that this will enhance your patients’ experience, but it will also enhance your own daily experience.

The more we inquire, the broader our understanding of where our patients are emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally, which will guide our suggestions for therapy. This is why it often becomes crucial to customize our narrative based on what we hear, what we see, and what we feel may be the points that truly drive the discussion home.

In the world that we are living in, everyone seems to be in such a hurry that no one really cares to know what is going on with others.

Showing genuine interest to learn about others makes patients feel incredibly special. This is a human trait that will hardly be mastered by artificial intelligence.

As a side note, with a blink of an eye, we now have forty episodes and counting. In fact, numerous patients have been asking us when they will be invited as guests – they also have cool stories to tell! But don’t get me wrong, I am no Mother Teresa. What our team has benefited from hearing all these stories certainly encompasses the common saying that the more you give, the more you receive.

I’d like to leave you with Marcel Proust’s iconic quote:

“The true voyage of discovery does not consist of visiting exotic lands but seeing with renewed eyes.​”

I would respectfully revisit this quote and add “renewed ears” when it comes to dental patient engagement.