Dentist on Fire

Often I'll see bios of dentists that have been practicing for 25 years, 30 years, even 35 years. We love these dentists because they have so many years of experience, and they must be doing something right to be doing the same "job" all those years. I imagine, though, what that means in terms of a dentist's personal life and how one can have the stamina to perform consistently over the course of decades through the waves of love, loss, and liability. We're responsible for a lot of other things in our lives, and not only that, we're subject to many things around us we have little or no power over that can affect us dramatically- family issues, losing loved ones, health scares, market crashes, and existential crises. What does it mean to have years of experience when no one person's experience of the years is the same as someone else's? We live our lives as clinicians in relation to our patients in weeks, months, and years. The typical healing time o...

In the past few weeks, the admissions process for dental schools has been heating up with applicants starting to get invitations for interviews, or for many applicants, NOT getting invitations for interviews. I had the opportunity to conduct mock interviews with applicants from my alma mater a couple of weeks ago in order to help get them ready for the interview process. Knowing what I know now as a practicing dentist, I'd bet as an applicant I was someone who knew an infinitesimal amount about dentistry pretending to know what he was talking about. Here are some tips if you are going through the application process (or if someone you know is going through it): Always emphasize the positive Be humble, hungry, and smart Resilience is the single-most important quality to display Ask for help before you apply, or interview, or begin dental school Lesson 1 - Always Emphasize the Positive One thing an experienced interviewer can do without too much difficulty if they want ...