Books Every Dentist Should Read

Books are a great resource for learning how to be a better version of you. They can help us clinically. They can teach us how to be a better leader and boss. And they can also help us with how we live our personal lives.

The following are a collection of books our faculty members love and recommend every dentist (or team) read.

Clinical Resources for Dentists

• Functional Occlusion From TMJ to Smile Design by Dr. Peter E. Dawson This textbook, written by our founder, covers the many aspects of functional occlusion and esthetics. It is absolutely life and career changing.
• The Complete Dentist Manual: The Essential Guide to Being a Complete Care Dentist by Dr. Peter E. Dawson and John C. Cranham This textbook is a tell it like it is exposure of why so many practices fall short of the satisfaction and rewards that predictably successful dentistry provides.
• Natures morphology by Shigeo Katoaka, Yoshimi Nishimura, Avishai Sadan
  This textbook provides essential information on producing functional and aesthetic restorations.

Entrepreneurship, Business Principle, and Business Management Resources for Dentists

• The E-Myth Physician by Michael Gerber
  A book with good basic business principles applied to health care.
• Call me Ted by Ted Turner and Bill Burke
  This book tells the life story of one of the most innovative entrepreneurs of all time. Turner describes a life of following his gut instincts instead of the crowd combined with a disciplined approach to time management, calculated risk taking and strong work ethic.
• Good to Great by James C. Collins
  An important component to implementing complete dentistry is being a great leader.  This book is the staple on how to become a better leader. This explains why a Level 5 Leader is the most successful one.
• Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
  This book discusses how something as simple as a checklist can reduce mistakes, especially in complex industries. This is a great book for helping put in place processes and checklists in your practice.

Team Building and Management Resources for Dentists and Team Members

• Flight of the Buffalo – Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead by Belasco and Stayer
  The book contains common sense leadership advice which can and should be implemented in a dental practice.  Because the primary product of a dental practice is the dentist’s time, it is essential to have an empowered team as the authors describe. This is not another theory book, it is extremely practical and unlike some leadership books geared to large organizations, is applicable in a dental practice.
• Wooden by Coach John Wooden with Steven Jamison
  This books combines John Woodens first book  They Call Me Coach with later observations by Coach Wooden. He was simply the best team builder of all time. I have given my team this book to read for staff meetings as the lessons he used in building UCLA apply to every business including dentistry. I re-read this book every 2 years or so as his principles of his “pyramid of success” are timeless.
• The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard
  This book has great principles for dealing with and managing people.

Customer Service Resources for Dentists

• Inside the Magic Kingdom by Tom Connellan
  This is an easy and great read for the team. It makes for a good staff meeting discussion on Service and Pride and things to implement from Disney’s perspective.
• Building the Happiness Centered Business by Paddi Lund
  A great book that shows how you can build a unique practice that combines excellent customer service with excellent dentistry resulting in a happy business with the profits you deserve.
• QBQ by John G. Miller
  This book is a great short read on how customer service can impact how a customer feels about a product or service. Something we can learn from when it comes to improving patient experience.

 Everyday & Personal Life

• A Better Way: The surprising path to a complete life by Dr. Peter E. Dawson The tell-all autobiography of Dr. Dawson’s humble beginnings to finding the true meaning of ‘success’.
• The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
  This is an awesome book to guide your life.
• The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
  This book is a great tool for communicating with your significant other, as well as your kids.
• No Excuses by Brian Tracy
  A book that teaches you how through self-discipline you can achieve success in all three major areas of your life, including your personal goals, business and money goals, and overall happiness.
• The Daniel Plan by Rick Warren, Daniel Amen MD, Mark Hyman MD
  This is a book that discusses being the healthiest person you can possibly be, which involves 5 key components:  food, fitness, focus, faith and friends. Full of great advice and a good read for the whole dental team.
• Beating the Heart Attack by Bradley Bale, Amy Doneen, Lisa Collier Cool
  Written by one of our own faculty in 2014, this book will help you guarantee you will never have a heart attack if you follow it’s prescription? what’s that worth? Priceless!
• Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson
  This book helps evaluate vision and what someone really wants. And it also helps evaluate if they’re in the right job or relationship.

Just for Fun

• Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
  Read this series to help with your imagination!
• Anything by Clive Cussler
  These are great mysteries, creative escapism and pure fun!
• Everything by Dan Brown
  Once again, these are very fun and great writing.

So how many of these books have you read? Do you have other books you recommend?

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