Show Intro

Let's face it, Dentistry is hard and can lead to discouraging moments for Dentists.

After a discouraging incident in her own practice, listen as Dr. House shares candidly about how she handles disappointment, and what she does to avoid burnout.

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Transcript

Transcript

Shawn Zajas  00:40

So today, we're going to share on a topic that we're, we're excited about in a sort of way, because it's something that's common to all dentists. And that is what happens when we face disappointment. Or, you know, specifically it could be a patient that doesn't like something you did. We, we know that everyone listening to this podcast cares so much about excellence, and being a great dentist. And we know the mountain you're all shooting for when it comes to growth and being great. But along the path of practice, in dentistry, there's going to be times where, whether you deserve it or not, there's a misunderstanding, there's some sort of incident that happens, it's either going to feel like defeat or discouragement. And in that place of struggle, what do you do to get back up? And that's what we want to talk about today. And the reason why is because recently with Dr. House's practice, you've had some experiences that have been similar to this.

Allison House  01:52

So I'm glad that you're excited. I'm having a bad day. In fact, I've had a bad week. And it all stems from one patience. And it's terrible how that can just one person can just take you down. But I'm going to just lay the groundwork so you know what's happening? Absolutely. So I have a case that I've been working on for three months. It's a patient that has her front six teeth were bonded with composite, and that wasn't very attractive, but they were bonded because of a periodontal issue. Talked to the periodontist, the periodontist said that I could do a bridge, a six unit bridge with six teeth is pretty complicated. And I took it on. And it was probably something that I hadn't ever taken on before. And so after a lot of thinking about it and trying different things, I ended up putting on some telescopic copings. And then I seeded the bridge this week. And I was super proud of it. I just thought that I was so clever. I was so smart, I'd come together and figured out this telescopic coping, and the patient don't like it. And she's mad at me. She's really mad at me. And the reason that she doesn't like it is because there's a little white line between the telescopic coping, and the bridge that I placed. All the margins are perfect, the bite is perfect. So I feel defeated. And the really terrible thing is, I mean, it gets to the point where I'm just like, why am I still practicing this killing me? I just keep working and working and working. And I feel like I'm not making progress. And that's not true, of course. But you do you get into that, that mindset?

Shawn Zajas  03:36

Well, the feeling is real. Like you probably had a lot of amazing patients, and again, successful outcomes that were great in the patient like them. But it's that one. And it's I feel like what makes this one even special. It's like, it was a challenge that you did a great job with. And I'm sure so many of your peers will look at that and go like, wow, they give you a pat on the back. But ultimately, the patient doesn't know the challenges how you overcame those. And they can't give you some technical critique of Dr. House that was just that was wonderful. And instead, the very first thing they said was they pointed to that small, little gap.

Allison House  04:21

It's not a gap. It's just a little white line. A gap would be terrible. Shawn can't have that.

Shawn Zajas  04:26

You can tell I'm not a dentist.

Allison House  04:30

No, it's a white line. And yeah, so it's kind of like you did everything perfect. And somebody just took the littlest thing and just pulled it out. And now they're ticked about it. And it does happen, especially in cosmetic dentistry, with patients where you can't meet their expectations. And it's hard.

Shawn Zajas  04:49

It's how you couldn't have been seen that seeing that coming. I mean, you were confident once you'd finished it like wow, this is great work. You're excited to take picture right I was

Allison House  04:59

excited To take a picture. Yeah. So that's hard. Because the patient's lip line is so far down that you would never see it. It's only when you lift the lip up. But anyway, I have an unhappy patient. And so I have to deal with that. I have to deal with a decision of how am I gotta manage her? How am I going to manage? You know, am I going to redo the stourbridge? I don't think I am. Am I going to refund her money? I don't know. I don't know. I'm meeting her again today. So I have to find something to say. And then somehow I have to rebuild my confidence to know that I learned something. I learned a lot with this case. And even though it didn't go the way she thought it should. I've learned and I will have better skills next time.

Shawn Zajas  05:49

But even that, like kind of taking a step back and deconstructing that, you're already coming to good conclusions. You're already saying, Well, I can learn from it. And I can do this. And I can do that. Well, like, again, I feel like because of your experience, and you know how great you've navigated this challenge of dentistry? I don't know I wouldn't, I just wouldn't take that for granted. Like, what if I didn't come to those conclusions? And I'm in the middle of it. And I'm thinking what is this say about me, as a dentist, like, if I can have a patient that is so disappointed, based off of some of the work that I think's my greatest and my best, and I'm really proud of what if I'm just not cut out for this.

Allison House  06:39

I'm gonna say every dentist has had to feel that way at some point. And it may not even be that you did your best work, you did something that you worked really hard on, it still didn't turn out, right. And so you just feel like you're the worst dentist that ever lived. But the only way you can get up and go to work the next morning and continue is you have to believe that you're learning. And it's called the practice of dentistry for a reason. Every day you go in and you practice and you learn. There's there's no way that you can graduate from dental school knowing everything, it's just not possible.

Shawn Zajas  07:12

I just think that bears repeating the practice of dentistry, because in saying that it's such an outlook. And it's something that I feel like you have to embrace. At first mentally, but at some point, at a heart level, you just have to believe like, hey, going forward, week after week, year after year, I'm growing in this. Can I call it a craft or is that not a good word? profession is what we use growing in this profession. And there's going to be some lows, where people aren't happy with me. And one week, it might be a patient. The other week, it might be a team member. You know, but when you find yourself there in that place where you're kind of discouraged, maybe teetering on despair, it's so important to do certain things so that you can get back up, you can build back up your confidence. Because imagine what it could be like week after week, if your confidence is slowly eroding.

Allison House  08:16

And I think that could easily happen to people that the confidence just continues to erode. But it is a an accepting feedback, I have to accept the feedback that I was given. Even though I don't agree. I still need to listen to people and see what can I do to be better. And that's always what you're doing. What can I do to be better? You know, of crime has an open margin, you retake the impression, you make a new one, you tell the patient, it's it's just you continue to learn how to be better, how to make better choices, and how to explain things better to patients at the beginning. That was probably my big mistake. I should have told her when we started. I didn't know when we started. That's where it's gonna end up.

Shawn Zajas  09:02

I was gonna say, by that you mean, this could have been a case just where her expectation was misplaced?

Allison House  09:11

I didn't manage that expectation. Well, okay. So this was this is a learning for me. And I need to manage expectations differently.

Shawn Zajas  09:19

Okay, so even though you just do these, all these amazing things automatically, you're taking responsibility, because one of the things we both believe is that unless you are responsible for some circumstance, on your end, you can't really grow if it's outside of your realm of the locus of control, like meaning, if I'm a victim to everything around me, then I have no power to do something about it. But you know, it'd be nice if the patient would have had correct expectations. But you know, unless you do a better job of training them and communicating Now you can understand, well, hey, it's not their fault, I can take it upon myself to next time make sure that I do a better job initially communicating.

Allison House  10:09

Exactly. I think you have to deconstruct everything like that, though. You have to see, okay, what can I do better because I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a victim to Yelp. I don't want to be a victim to my patients, I, I have power. But I have power. Because every time I do something, they tell me, people are so gracious to do that. They always tell you exactly what you've done wrong. And if you just accept it, and do what needs to be done, you grow, and you get better.

Shawn Zajas  10:38

So worst case scenario is that something happens, and maybe that patient decides not to be part of the family anymore. But that doesn't always happen. Like you're sharing. There's a lot of times where the patient ends up, coming back or staying with you. Like, I don't know, just talk about those two kinds of outcomes.

Allison House  11:02

Well, this is, of course, not the first time this has happened to me. I did this a lot of gold work on a gentleman a couple of years ago. Oh, maybe it's been eight, nine years ago. And there was an issue with insurance. And they didn't pay as much as he thought. And he was furious. And he left. But every practice, he went to told him that the goldwork was just so beautiful. So he came back, because suddenly he understood what I put into it. Now, that doesn't happen very often. But it was validating that somebody understood what I had done, how hard I had worked, and appreciated it. There's also been cases when I didn't do a great job. It came in, I thought I'd done a really good job. And they went to see the prosthodontist after me and the prosthodontist did something different. And I went Wow, he was pretty clever there. I wish I had known how to do that. But again, that's a learning. I learned from that. And part of it is because I called the prosthodontist and asked, well, that's great. It's humbling, honestly, but it's also very proactive. You have to know you have to know what's available. And sometimes you've done the absolute best work you possibly can. And this is what it is. I mean, but sometimes there was a better choice. And if you can find out what that is. Yeah, you should do that.

Shawn Zajas  12:24

You know, it's difficult at times to look at someplace where there could be a lack or a growth opportunity with like, real bluntness and saying, Okay, this is actually an issue I need to grow in. But if you don't, you won't have the opportunity to grow. And so I think so much of your perspective, Allison, is this again, like you said, this growth mindset of true failure really is if a bad experience happens with a patient, and you don't learn?

Allison House  13:02

Well, yeah, cuz you don't want to just keep replicating it. And that's what will happen, or worse yet, you just decide you're not going to do this anymore. I will just never do a big bridge again. Well, that's not a good choice. In fact, I just spent all this time learning about this, I'm going to do another one. I'm gonna set it up better. But absolutely, I'm going to do another one.

Shawn Zajas  13:22

So don't enter into resignation over an incident. I mean, I feel like that's the classic story. It's like, you have someone that's amazing at something. And we just always think, Well, hey, they must have just been born that way. And there's a lot of people naturally gifted that not a lot of people. There's a few people, I think that actually have this, like, from glory to glory, upward trending experience in the life, but most people had to overcome adversity. And this is some form of adversity. It's like, No, I care about this, and I'm wanting to learn, and I'm going to be great at this procedure. And then I think I'm doing a great job. I'm really proud of it. And all of a sudden, the very first thing the patient says is something critical. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I could see how you could, you could have been fuming like they don't even know you could have been like, you don't even know what you're talking about. Like I think it'd be hard for me not to be condescending. In a circumstance like that. Do you know whether it's yourself or colleagues, if that's something that you guys, just as a profession struggle with?

Allison House  14:34

Well, I think everyone takes criticism in a different way. And I definitely have had to learn to take more criticism as I've gotten older. At first, I'm sure that I probably didn't say anything nice to the patient, and that I'm sure turned out poorly. That was a long time ago. But as I've gotten older, I'm I'm able to take that criticism and hand it back. Part of what I'm going to do today is I'm going to bring up the picture where she started. So that she remembers where she started. Because I think patients forget. So that'll be part of our conversation. But, you know, I'm gonna listen, I'm going to tell her the truth. Because I think that's, that's the only thing to do here.

Shawn Zajas  15:19

Right? Right. It's not about I don't know, it's not about skirting, I don't know, some sort of side thing, you just need to take it head on, and be confident that, you know, hopefully, the best for the patient is going to come forth, whether that's with you, or whether that's somewhere else, and you just need to be need to have a piece about that, you know,

Allison House  15:41

you won't win every single time,

Shawn Zajas  15:43

which is one of the takeaways, right? You can't please everyone all the time.

Allison House  15:49

You can't. And, and that's just part of life. But you get better every single time. And you have to remember that every single day, I get better.

Shawn Zajas  16:02

You know, I wonder, you know, for the listeners, they may not know, but perfectionism is one of those things that I struggle with. And I wonder, like, if there are certain things that I just would not have been good at, for example, like baseball, like the best batters in the world? What strike out like 65% of the time? That's right. Like, that's crazy to think about to think of like, like, an A in school is 90 and above. Yes, but if an A in your profession is 35% success, which, again, depending on your profession, like you couldn't have that sort of air. When placing or doing a medical procedure. You don't me? Yes, absolutely. But but I'm just saying like, I, I don't know, I'm just saying like that mindset to be like, Yeah, I start out, but I'll hit it next time. And to know that, because that's really what we're talking about some sort of strikeout something didn't go as planned. It's not something you're proud of, not necessarily the outcome, but just the interaction. Because ultimately, you want to deliver great dentistry and have happy patients. Right, that's like a dream come true. I'm proud of what I did. And the patients happy because if the patient's happy, but you're not proud of what you did, that's still kind of like a halfway because, you know, I could have done better.

Allison House  17:27

Oh, I can't sleep at night. Right? It makes me crazy.

Shawn Zajas  17:30

So it has to be both. But it's not when things are going great. You know, you don't need a podcast for what do I do when everything's going great? It's when you get knocked down. And maybe it's like the perfect storm, maybe you're having a staff issue. And then maybe you're excited because you love this patient, and you're super excited about what you're doing. And then they're not happy. And now all of a sudden, it's like between that some other financial stress. You're like, again, waking up going, Why did I think becoming a dentist was a good idea. But even though I'm kind of like smiling about this, there's some tragedies that go along with thinking that too long.

Allison House  18:20

Absolutely. In fact, we we have a lot of patients at a lot of dentists that are depressed, that are doing just things that are negative to their bodies, smoking, drinking, because trying to deal with the stress, the stress that everyone expects us to be perfect all the time. It's not humanly possible. And if you are perfect all the time, I always have to come back to my dad. In weightlifting, when you compete in a weightlifting meet, there are three there are two lifts, and you get three attempts. So there's the clean and jerk, and then there's the snatch. And you have to do three attempts with the SNATCH and then three attempts with the clean and jerk. And you start off with something you know you can do. And the second one is something I might be able to do, I'm going to try. And the third lift should always be something, I'm just gonna go for it. Always. And he says if you make all six of your lifts, you didn't try hard enough. You should never make all six of your lifts. You should drop one of them because you tried something that was a little more difficult.

Shawn Zajas  19:26

You know? So in high school, I went from like, a casual running like being good when I was playing soccer or playing football, like we'd run laps. And I always had the most endurance to all of a sudden now being like in cross country. And I just went from track where we didn't do a lot of running says more sprints and mid distance. And I was in my first season with cross country and I remember the very first meet where it was only a 2.1 mile run were normally the 3.1 but it was like easing into some jamboree. And right off the gun Then people started sprinting. And I was used to the soccer players, the football players that what you did is you jogged. And then at the end, because you had some leftover, you sprint it, were real runners. You don't, you're not able, like I know, there's like, the whole, like you have a kick, but I'm just saying, the kick that most people are used to is just because they didn't know how to empty it. They weren't running all out, they didn't know how to actually give it all. And I found that out really quickly. I was like, What are these people doing? How can they maintain these this pace, but they could because they were great runners. They weren't just joggers that knew how to sprint at the end. And that's just the difference. It's like, No, you shouldn't have that left in your legs at the end of the race, because you're giving it all,

Allison House  20:51

you gave it all. And that's that's true in anything though. You go in if every time you do something you always win. If every time you do something, it's always perfect. Well, have you ever stretched yourself? What are you doing here, you've got to get out there and try something that maybe it's a little more difficult, maybe you won't have 100% the first time.

Shawn Zajas  21:11

And that's another again, mindset thing. So if you challenge yourself, and you came up short, in some way, the things you need to be telling yourself now isn't just repeating what the patient said to you of, Oh, my God, that's terrible. It's, you know, what, I am proud of the fact that I did challenge myself, I did try something different. I'm learning a lot like all these things that we're reminding ourselves of our positive instead of, I guess I'm doomed to fail.

Allison House  21:47

And if you plant that seed, I'm doomed to fail. Well, you've like, predicted your future, you're doomed to fail. Whatever you believe it's what's going to happen. So you have to get in there and really believe I'm learning, I'm getting better every day, I'm getting better. And it does happen.

Shawn Zajas  22:07

You know, and nothing brings that more to light than actually gardening like so for any of you that are gardeners, you'll get this but for you that aren't because we can survive in today's modern world without having to garden, our own food. But if you just throw down a scattering of seeds, some are great plants and vegetables, or fruits or vegetables, and other ones are C are weeds, I guarantee you, most of those are probably going to come up and you're going to have a lot of weeds in your garden, like you can expect to plant just anything. And the reason why I say that is like I know, I don't know where I heard this, but it's like your mind. Like the main thing that like your brain is supposed to be doing originally is just filtering, like thoughts like is this something that I want to hang on to that's true, because if it is, you can kind of let it go deeper in your mind, which is like what they refer to as the heart. Because whatever enters that deeper level, the heart is going to bear fruit. So if you're battling with all these thoughts, and the seeds that are critical, and they're really negative, and they're going to lead to lots of self doubt, don't, don't accept them, don't receive them, like don't receive that you're damaged goods, or that you're never going to figure it out. Or that you're just should, you should resign and just stop doing that procedure. Because ultimately, it's going to bear fruit. And that's not going to be conducive for the type of dentists you want to be, which is at your best to help out your patients and to help out your community.

Allison House  23:41

That was really well said. Thank you. So you were talking about planting. So there's other things that I do to plant good things into myself. And one of them is every time a patient writes a thank you note, I have a drawer, and I fill the drawer with these thank you notes. And so sometimes when I'm really feeling down, I'll go in and I'll read them. Because it's uplifting to remember that these patients really liked me, they really felt like I did a good job. And so there's lots of little things that you can do to to plant good seeds. I am good at what I do. Don't call your mother, because your mother will say you're wonderful, but you know, she doesn't know anything about your dentistry. You could call a colleague though. Somebody who actually knows your work and talk through things. You could listen to a podcast, you could just a lot of things you can do to remind yourself that I'm I am good at what I do.

Shawn Zajas  24:41

I think it's so much about like you're saying just getting the right perspective. So often if we're looking at the one thing and focusing on it, what happens when we focus on it, we're amplifying it. And it's like that simple thing of going to your drawer and rereading cards Man, that is just powerful. That is so powerful. And I would encourage anyone listening, like, whatever should be inside of your drawer, what's that going to be that you look at. Or that reminds you, of why you do what you do, of why you keep going. Because it's kind of a warzone dentistry. And I know a lot of the people on the top painted as this ideal life, where it's just a dream, they're living the dream, they have the million dollar plus home, all the, you know, crazy BMWs and Mercedes or whatever vehicles are driving around, and they're just great, and they don't struggle. But That's so unfair to 99% of dentists that are actually experiencing life.

Allison House  25:49

I'm gonna have to tell you that that 1% You're talking about struggles, too. I know those people, they struggle just like everybody else. They just have that growth mindset that I'm gonna learn this, I'm just gonna keep going. And they do. And of course, they've got some other gifts that maybe not everyone has. But yeah, there's, there's no one out there who just was born and all of a sudden, can just do dentistry perfectly, and can just master any new procedure. It's just not possible.

Shawn Zajas  26:17

But even if they did, they still have to have patients that are perfect. Right? So so either there's imperfect, clinical dentistry, or there's imperfect patients that aren't happy, regardless, because they're just difficult. You know, there's some people like that. So regardless, it's like, how do you get back up. And that's why we're having this podcast, if that's you, and you're really discouraged right now. Because you're having a lot more of these incidences than you'd like, or maybe it's just, it doesn't matter, it could just be one over the last two months, take a step back, get some perspective, give yourself credit, for the ways in which you are helping people, the ways in which you're changing lives, the ways in which you've even stepped out and taken so much risk to just be a dentist. I mean, this is such a challenging profession. And I say that as sincere as possible. Because you know, this Allison, I keep talking about, I feel like you have the same challenges that I do as a small business owner. But that's where my responsibilities and you still have to be great clinically, which is massive, it's such a responsibility. And to balance that, man. Maybe we should become dental therapists that offer therapy to dentists because that must be a booming profession, because dentistry needs help.

Allison House  27:44

It is, it's a really tough profession. And you're right, balancing all those things, I think we do forget that we're balancing all of these things. Plus, we're trying to be family, daughters, wives, mothers, husbands, fathers, we're trying to do all of these roles. And it's, it's a hard thing to balance. I don't know, if dental therapists maybe there should be the dental therapists out there.

Shawn Zajas  28:10

So what do we want to leave listeners with? What would you like to encourage them with, to just take time, and do maybe after the listen to this, or in the next week?

Allison House  28:21

Well, I took my day to be defeated. And so now I'm going to regroup. And I'm going to figure out what what I could have done better what I did to write what I learned, and then I'm going to move on. And whatever happens happens. And when the next bridge walks in, I'm going to do it perfectly. And I say that a little facetiously, because there's no such thing as perfectly. But I'm going to have a ton of skills under my belt. I'll know what to say when we start. And I'll know where I'm going.

Shawn Zajas  28:52

You know, I think that's great. So you look at what you did, right? Give yourself credit. Because, again, if you just listened to your patient here, you wouldn't get to acknowledge the fact that you overcame a lot of difficulties, and you did an amazing job. So first you give yourself credit. And then you look at okay, now, what is it work? Could there be some truth in this? Where could there be an opportunity for me to grow? And you already identified it? You said, before we even started, I should have communicated expectation better. And you took that upon yourself, but who knows anything else you find when you're saying Where can I grow is gonna help you become better. So we've encouraged you don't, I mean, look for as many things as you can and get encouraged that those are just opportunities for growth. Then I feel like there's the third thing, Move on, move on. Like you say it simply but that is so important. It's just like shake off the dust from the feeling of either being misunderstood or maybe some of the words were a little jagged and hurt. and acknowledge the hurt. Acknowledge that it doesn't have to do with who you are as a person and who you are as a dentist. And yeah, shake it off, move forward and just believe that you are serving patients, you are making a difference. And, frankly, we need you out there being at your best. So we hope this hope this episode encouraged you.