The #1 Step to Improving Your Dental Practice

The following are questions and concerns from a dentist and Dr. Scott Finlay’s answers and insight.

Question 1: Just because I see it (diagnosis it) doesn’t mean my patients will want to treat it (even acute, painful, or blatant problems they are aware of gets put on the back burner).

Question 2: How much of the first course can I use immediately to make me a better clinician?

Question 3: If I am not able to take all of the courses will I still be better than if I took none of the courses?

The philosophies that are the core of The Dawson Academy are not about practicing a different kind of dentistry, but practicing better, more predictable, complete care for your patients.  The understanding, skills and protocols that you will master as a student in the core curriculum will improve your efficiency, productivity and profitability as a dentist.

You are correct that every patient that has treatment needs, may not elect to pursue treatment: some due to financial reasons, some due to personal reasons, some due to value reasons.  In your practice you will initially experience a large percentage of patients that will be seeking general care, but there will be some that elect comprehensive care.  You need to be patient.  Over time you will find increasingly, more and more of your patients will begin to transition to comprehensive solutions.  It is their role to make those decisions and not ours.  It is our role however, to educate them and to be their advocate for the best care possible.  I think you will be surprised by your patient’s interest in seeking quality care.  That doesn’t mean a full mouth reconstruction with ceramics every time.  Whether treatment is provided with plastic or glass; with implants or removable dentures, the principles are the same in providing predictable care.

Predictable care at any level will improve your profitability and efficiency by reducing time wasted with remakes or fractured restorations that are never practice builders or make patients happy.  Your experiences with the Dawson Academy will help you make recommendations to your patients that are in their best interest.

You will find the information you learn from the very first program to be infectious and very useful to return to your practice.  The entire Senior Faculty of The Dawson Academy are wet fingered dentists that each have full time practices.  That is unique to our organization.  The knowledge is practical and allows you to return to the chair on Monday with a fresh vision.  I can tell you this from personal experience, because this changed my professional life and laid the ground for my success in dentistry.

The pace you pursue your education is up to you.  If you want to be efficient, I would recommend staying with a single teaching academy and focus on a continuum that is consistent.  Hopping around from day program to day program from varying academies, gives you very little opportunity to get down to the real nuts and bolts and actually make a difference in your practice.  The Dawson Academy offers this opportunity in our core curriculum that builds upon each successive program.

Doing nothing would be the only mistake.  You will become what you learn.  By failing to make the initiative to learn, you are losing a tremendous opportunity.

Interested in this blog post? You might also be interested in our first course, Functional Occlusion – From TMJ to Smile Design. Read more here…