- Joined
- Apr 22, 2014
- Messages
- 10
Hi,
I confess I've been lurking in a dentist-only forum a bit, where, as a consumer, I was not exactly allowed. It was indeed an eye-opener. The common grievances of dentists seem to be
1) patients not caring about their decaying teeth until there is pain (dentists reminding each other not to care more than the patient does and just wait until he/she comes back for extraction/endo)
2) ungrateful (and not always poor) charity patients with a sense of entitlement, often a no-show
3) patients evaluating dentists by wrong criteria (painless, ease of scheduling, less chair time, in-network, etc) as opposed to longevity of the work; most patients apparently have no idea/don't care whether their existing dental work is any good.
4) communication barrier, having to "dumb oneself down" in order to be understood by the patients (my words, not theirs!)
I've also heard somewhere (not sure it's true) that of all professions, dentists have the highest suicide rate; apparently, because they have to meet people, day after day, year after year, who don't particularly enjoy seeing them.
From my standpoint, my surprises were:
1) intelligence of dentists, the level of complexity and the pace of change in their field (I thought teeth are teeth are teeth, but no.. it's a lifetime learning)
2) the extent and the openness with which dentists are for-profit (I guess that might be because at first they are tied up by having to pay off their student loans and have no choice, and then just get used to making money like crazy?) Sometimes patient is put first, but not always..
3) shocking standard deviation of quality of dental work among dentists and even for a given dentist; huge amount of dental work being what in their scientific parlor is called "crap".
4) among themselves, dentists, especially young ones, seem to have no problem admitting to their shortcomings and that others are superior to them in such and such field; something I, as a patient, have never seen a doctor do. Actually makes me respect them more.
5) they often find medical mistakes to be funny (I guess a bit of gallows humor never hurts). On the upper note, they laugh at their own mistakes, too, publicly and with their full name and contact info posted.
6) They don't call each other Dr. This and Dr. That (then why do they want us to?)
7) The learning curve is incredibly steep: dental school does not teach dentists as much as they learn on the job (on their mistakes, i.e. YOU).
8) Dentists are basically different people when among peers. (Like other service-oriented professionals I guess). Not bad people! In many ways way better than I expected. More personable, more intelligent (just look at their signatures at forums!), more authentic, funnier, way more modest and less full of themselves. Way different though.
More than ever, the dental profession (probably, medical in general) now reminds me of a medieval guild, from which it originates.
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I started looking at all that, because I don't know where to even begin finding a good dentist; and now I know why. Patients on Yelp, droogle and such only care about superficial things, not longevity of dental work (they do care about cosmetics, fortunately, as do I, so there is that), so their testimonies are of limited use; can't ask a dentist because of a possible conflict of interest (referrals are a very serious business); also, it appears that a dentist often won't refer to his or her professor, because of the fear that the professor might see their mistakes. In my town where most dentists have graduated from the same local dental school and know each other, this social aspect might be quite significant.
Now that I have this frightening awareness that dentists screw up just as much as we do, which is to say, a lot (I am a programmer), where do I find a dentist who will do a good job?
I confess I've been lurking in a dentist-only forum a bit, where, as a consumer, I was not exactly allowed. It was indeed an eye-opener. The common grievances of dentists seem to be
1) patients not caring about their decaying teeth until there is pain (dentists reminding each other not to care more than the patient does and just wait until he/she comes back for extraction/endo)
2) ungrateful (and not always poor) charity patients with a sense of entitlement, often a no-show
3) patients evaluating dentists by wrong criteria (painless, ease of scheduling, less chair time, in-network, etc) as opposed to longevity of the work; most patients apparently have no idea/don't care whether their existing dental work is any good.
4) communication barrier, having to "dumb oneself down" in order to be understood by the patients (my words, not theirs!)
I've also heard somewhere (not sure it's true) that of all professions, dentists have the highest suicide rate; apparently, because they have to meet people, day after day, year after year, who don't particularly enjoy seeing them.
From my standpoint, my surprises were:
1) intelligence of dentists, the level of complexity and the pace of change in their field (I thought teeth are teeth are teeth, but no.. it's a lifetime learning)
2) the extent and the openness with which dentists are for-profit (I guess that might be because at first they are tied up by having to pay off their student loans and have no choice, and then just get used to making money like crazy?) Sometimes patient is put first, but not always..
3) shocking standard deviation of quality of dental work among dentists and even for a given dentist; huge amount of dental work being what in their scientific parlor is called "crap".
4) among themselves, dentists, especially young ones, seem to have no problem admitting to their shortcomings and that others are superior to them in such and such field; something I, as a patient, have never seen a doctor do. Actually makes me respect them more.
5) they often find medical mistakes to be funny (I guess a bit of gallows humor never hurts). On the upper note, they laugh at their own mistakes, too, publicly and with their full name and contact info posted.
6) They don't call each other Dr. This and Dr. That (then why do they want us to?)
7) The learning curve is incredibly steep: dental school does not teach dentists as much as they learn on the job (on their mistakes, i.e. YOU).
8) Dentists are basically different people when among peers. (Like other service-oriented professionals I guess). Not bad people! In many ways way better than I expected. More personable, more intelligent (just look at their signatures at forums!), more authentic, funnier, way more modest and less full of themselves. Way different though.
More than ever, the dental profession (probably, medical in general) now reminds me of a medieval guild, from which it originates.
=======
I started looking at all that, because I don't know where to even begin finding a good dentist; and now I know why. Patients on Yelp, droogle and such only care about superficial things, not longevity of dental work (they do care about cosmetics, fortunately, as do I, so there is that), so their testimonies are of limited use; can't ask a dentist because of a possible conflict of interest (referrals are a very serious business); also, it appears that a dentist often won't refer to his or her professor, because of the fear that the professor might see their mistakes. In my town where most dentists have graduated from the same local dental school and know each other, this social aspect might be quite significant.
Now that I have this frightening awareness that dentists screw up just as much as we do, which is to say, a lot (I am a programmer), where do I find a dentist who will do a good job?
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