Education

I’ve spent the last half of my life researching something that doesn’t exist. True, I’ve chased a lot of white rabbits down endless holes. My Bigfoot hunt, search for sunken pirate gold, subprime real estate buying spree, and petition to ban mercury fillings were all wastes of time and money. Yet those were short-lived, or “stupid bachelor phases” as my wife reminds me weekly. I’m most disturbed by my 18-year obsession to become an expert on an elusive non-entity that earns real experts fame and fortune and NY Times columns and cable news shows. I want to become an expert on The Economy.

I’m not an expert in many things and I’m in good company. Flipping through Fox/CNN/MSNBC/The Daily Show, I’ve reached the conclusion that the real (paid) experts aren’t necessary experts either, not in the sense that they definitively know what’s going on in their area. Even my (former) mechanic couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my (former) car; hence my Prius purchase! It kind of puts the whole expert concept into question…

At Stanford I studied one of the most conflicted subjects outside of politics: Economics. My professors included former presidential advisor Paul Krugman, a formal World Bank president, an International Monetary Fund executive, a chief European Union economist, and somebody in the running for the Nobel Prize for Economics. These people mostly knew what they were talking about, and I mostly paid attention and mostly earned good grades. Even today I still diligently read economics textbooks and journals.

And I still don’t know what the Economy is.

I’ve never seen an economy. I’ve never touched one, polygraphed one, or given an economy a ride home after a long night of drinking. Yet everybody I know, even the experts on TV, seems obsessed with this invisible economy thing. It’s time to expose the economy for what it is: mass psychology and fortune-telling. To sum it up: The economy is only a concept that we non-experts (everybody) use to loosely understand how much money we’re making now and how much we can hope to make in the future.

Let me break down that scary sentence, word by word:

• Concept–it’s not real; we’re putting a label on something we can’t really define (like “standard morality” or “reasonable standard of care”)
• Non-experts–that’s all of us; as non-experts we aren’t really qualified in the first place to label or define it (unlike my ex-mechanic, who was supposedly qualified to define my ex-car’s problem)
• Loosely understand–I don’t even understand why my Prius starts when I push the On button or why my wife gets snippy when I park the Prius on the lawn at 3am. Don’t expect society’s comprehension to be more coherent than my 4-year-old’s understanding of electricity
• How much money we’re making now–The heart of the matter is Buying Power. On my salary can I afford food? New clothes? My own house? Kids? A Vegas vacation? A second Prius? A boat? A summer home? A private island? If the answer is yes, you’re happy and spend. If it’s no, you’re angry and curse the economy.
• Hope–It’s not just a campaign slogan! Back to emotional psychology; do you feel lucky? Happy and lucky? Happy and lucky enough to spend money? Remember hope also has a downside called fear. When people are afraid, or are afraid others are afraid, they stop spending. It’s not rational; neither are humans (except my wife).
• Future–This means tomorrow, in five years, in twenty-five years, and in retirement (not necessarily in that order). Our method for predicting the future ranges from computer modeling to ouija boards, and before you knock ouija boards remember those oh-so-accurate weather forecasters use computer modeling.

The economy is the sum of seven billion peoples’ blind guesses about their wealth some time in the foggy future. My wife and I can’t agree on our dog’s name (arriving next month); there will be world peace and trustworthy politicians before there’s any consensus on this nebulous economy concept. No wonder I’m afraid to eat Greek yogurt!

How does this apply to my dental friends, my dental friends ask. Your patients still believe in the mythical seven-headed economy. I recommend you look in the sterilization area and under the dental chair and promise the patient there is no economy lurking there. It’s just their imagination. Then remind the patients that:

1. Their personal paycheck and bank account balance are all that matter, and they are coincidentally real.
2. If the patient is employed and contributing more value than cost to the employer, don’t worry (and if not, remember deadbeat employees get fired even in gleeful economic times)
3. If the patient doesn’t know where to invest any meager savings (the stock market is about where it was in fall 1999, the housing market still has enough traps to scare away Indiana Jones, and the shiny rock known as gold is in the middle of a 8,000-year bubble and still far below its 1980s price)… recommend investing in their own personal health! That never loses value and will be appreciated every time your patient smiles, eats, sleeps, and breathes.
4. If the patient wants to save money, it’s much cheaper to get a $1,200 crown today instead of waiting for the condition to worsen and next year shelling out $1,500 for the root canal and then $1,400 for the crown (marked up because it now has a core buildup).
5. Regardless of what the masses believe tomorrow holds, what is the value of being free of pain today? If your patients are willing to accept a little pain to save a little money, lower your fees and drill without anesthesia. That should prove my point in 5 seconds or less.

We all know those “health is priceless” sayings. At treatment planning time your patients need to be reminded that the economy boogeyman only exists in their nightmares, next to trolls and space aliens and tax collectors. Their health and happiness are much more tangible. It’s time to start putting their money where their mouth is.

Last night at our dental study club I got on a rant. I rant enough  to be diagnosed with Tourettes, and last night’s hit a special nerve that caused more irritation than a knock-off mystery metal implant through the alveolar canal. Somebody brought up insurance–not real insurance, but dental insurance.

Dental insurance is NOT insurance. It’s so ridiculously not insurance that it deserves lame air quotes. Dental “insurance” is a very simple scam, far less complicated than the common Bernie Madoff ponzi or “you’ll get Social Security some day” schemes. Here’s how I explain dental “insurance” to patients:

• If a  rock strikes my head (and many people are throwing strange objects at me now), Blue Cross says: “Marshall, go get yourself fixed. You pay the first $500 and your insurance will pay the rest.”
• If a rock strikes my car, State Farm says: “Marshall, go get the Prius fixed. You pay the first $500 and your insurance will pay the rest.”
• If a rock strikes my teeth, Delta Dental says: “Marshall, go get your teeth fixed. Delta will pay the first $500 and you pay the rest.”

That is not insurance! Insurance insures against something catastrophically expensive, like the night I had kidney stones and spent four hours in an ER bed with a morphine shot for a total of $16,500. Dental “insurance” gives patients a little bit of money to pay for a large bill, namely up to $1,500 if you have a “good” plan, or more commonly $1,000. What was the average dental insurance reimbursement back in 1967, you may ask? (Coincidentally I have that data.) It was $1,000. Also in 1967 a gallon of gas cost $0.33, an ounce of gold was $35, the median US house cost $16,500 (now the price of a 4 hour ER visit and some watered-down morphine), and a dental crown was $65. Today that crown is at least $1,000 (anything less and its core was a junked car battery in China two weeks ago). Everything else in the country has inflated in the last 44 years; gas is up 1,320%, gold 4,750%, homes up 1,495% even after the housing crash. Yet dental “insurance” benefits remain exactly the same.

Of course dental “insurance” premiums are up. So are dental “insurance” “company” profits and executive salaries. In 2007 and 2008 Delta CEO Thomas Fleszar brought home $5.5 million in salary and benefits–at least that’s what he reported to shareholders, and I have no reason to believe that a dental “insurance” executive wouldn’t be totally honest. And he deserves every million. Tommy Boy Fleszar and the rest of those geniuses running the “non-profit” known as Delta are all doing a bang-up job!

Let’s get back to the “benefits” of dental “insurance” (and I hate using air quotes, but I hate dental “insurance” more and it’s oddly “appropriate” in this case). As a small business owner (I do own a CBCT dental imaging center and consider its four employees my responsibility) I recently went dental “insurance” shopping. It was almost exactly NOT like shopping for a new car. I didn’t see anything I wanted and the sales people could care less what I bought.

As stated I can get at most $1,500 in dental “insurance” benefits. Does that mean they’ll cover all of my $1,200 crown? Of course not–that’s as likely as the DMV lady enjoying her job. Dental “insurance” will pay an undisclosed portion of each procedure, based on a top secret equation averaging the Usual and Customary Rates of dentists in my home of San Francisco, the nearby cow-town of Lodi, somewhere in eastern Kansas, and the US  territory of Guam. That’s why my dentist, with 25 years of experience and $30,000 of practice management software, has no clue what my dental “insurance” will cover. I finally figured out that if I get enough dentistry done, eventually my “insurance” will pick up about $1,500 of the bill. If I’m lucky.

For this “benefit” I pay only $175 per month. Let me save you a trip to the calculator. $175 per month, times 12 months, equals $2,100 per year I pay to my dental “insurance” for the awesome benefit of wrestling a maximum of $1,500 in dental reimbursement each year. That’s the kind of math that sunk the Greek economy. It also sunk my allegiance to dental “insurance,” and I’m now paying out of pocket (or in CEREC blocks… I “found” a few).

I recently cornered a mid-level executive from a well-known dental “insurance” company and asked a few questions. I can’t say which company, but I can say it rhymes with “smelt ya!” It went something like this (I changed his name to protect the guilty):

• Me: “Why are my maximum annual ‘insurance’ benefits less than my annual premiums?”
• Thief: “They’re pretty close.”
• Me: “No, I lose about $600 per year if I max out my benefits.”
• Thief: “Uh… most clients don’t do that much math.”
• Me: “I multiplied my monthly payment by 12. It’s not quantum physics.”
• Thief: “Still, most people don’t think that way.” (see my We’re Stupid post)
• Me: “That’s not much of an answer… why do I seem to be losing so much each year.”
• Thief: “[Smelt-Ya] is a big company. We need to cover overhead expenses, and shareholders.”
• Me: “Your executives and shareholders are doing well?”
• Thief: “Very well! We’re a solid company.”
• Me: “But wouldn’t I–and all of your ‘clients’–be better off without you, just pocketing our $2,100 and paying your ‘up to’ $1,500 worth of coverage?”
• Thief: “Like I said, most clients don’t do that much math…”

My We’re Stupid blog post is becoming more all-encompassing, and not just because we’re approaching an election circus. Dental “insurance” is only for people who are really bad a math. Dental “insurance” should be sold at 7-11 with lotto tickets. However, there’s a reason why it cheats all of its clients. With normal insurance, like fire or auto theft, the insurance company charges everybody a little and then gives payouts to the few people who suffer those events. I don’t know anybody who has had a house burn down or a car stolen, yet I (and all of my friends) have home fire and car theft insurance.

Our mouths are a different story. We use them every day, and humans (for the first 99.5% of our existence) didn’t usually live past our 40′s. Now we do… but were our teeth made to? Were our teeth made to withstand chewing ice cubes and opening beer bottles at parties and nail-dissolving soft drinks and hard candy we sadistically label jaw breakers? Our teeth break. And they’ll continue to break, annually, regularly, completely, either by fracture or decay. And we’ll need some level of dental care every year. Dental “insurance” companies can’t spread the risk when there’s a better than average risk that we’ll all need a lot of expensive care. It’s like a life insurance company targeting a leper colony. Bad business… unless you raise the annual rates to exceed the annual coverage, and hope nobody does the math.

I just did the math for you, and it isn’t pretty. Neither is dental “insurance.”

A few of my dentist friends have experimented with Groupon, or another copycat mass discount site. A few dentists have also experimented with cocaine. Both brave groups experienced the same result: everything sped up for a period of time, yet the doctor ended the ride feeling exhausted, broke, and foolish.

For those of you who don’t know, here’s how it works. Cocaine floods your brain with euphoria-inducing chemicals; you feel extremely focused and think you accomplish more than ever before. Groupon floods your practice with patients; you feel extremely productive and think you are earning more than ever before.

Then reality kicks you in the crotch.

After either rush you’re exhausted (you worked so hard) and depressed (you needed something to help you) and broke (it’s an expensive habit) and stupid (no elaboration needed). On the cocaine side, it’s expensive and stupid. Let’s face it; illegal drugs aren’t mixed by university-educated bio-chemists using regulated material, and you’re not taking a potentially fatal heart-accelerant in physician-prescribed doses. Cocaine is coo coo for cocoa puffs crazy stupid.

So is Groupon. During the promo period you’re flooded with new patients… who are all there because your services are discounted, not because your services are excellent. These are the price-paranoid who would accept used cotton rolls if that would further reduce their cost. True, a few of these discount-addicts might hang around after the Groupon special ends and your regular fees surface like the shark fin on Jaws. But don’t count on it.

“But during that Groupon rush won’t I fill my schedule and increase my profitability?” you may ask. Yes, you will be busy. Yes, your schedule may burst at the seams. No, you won’t be profitable. You offer a service through Groupon at a steep discount, so your fees are already lowered. Then your flood of rent-a-patients pay Groupon for the service, Groupon takes a health percentage (20-50%… they aren’t a non-profit or charity), and Groupon pays you the remainder. In short, you earn maybe half of your standard fee.

“But half is better than nothing, right?” Wrong! What’s your overhead? (If you don’t know, getting hooked on cocaine or Groupon is the least of your worries.) Most dentists operate at 60-70% overhead, meaning they take home 30-40% of their production. Reduce the fee for a service by half with Groupon and you’re actually losing (paying out of your pocket) 10-20% of the cost so the Groupon groupies can enjoy it. Each Groupon junkie patient costs you money; it would be cheaper not to see them. If you’re feeling charitable, work at a clinic on Friday. I’m looking at a Groupon deal now from one adventurous dentists, offering x-rays, a new patient exam, and a prophy for $49 (discounted 84% from $300). Sadly the dentist probably gets $15-20 for her time after Groupon takes its cut. The minimum cost of turning over an operatory is $30, and that doesn’t include staff time…

In addition, that Groupon horde is filling your schedule and crowding out some new paying patients. Then the special ends and the horde leaves like those estranged in-laws who stay at your house an extra week and eat everything, drink everything, borrow money, and pilfer a few souvenirs. As a final insult, like the moocher in-laws leaving dirty dishes under your bed, Groupon groupies are much more likely to place negative Yelp and online reviews than their full-price counterparts (www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/business/deal-sites-have-fading-allure-for-merchants.html). So these discount donkeys cost you money, crowd out long-term patients, trash your reputation, then leave when the free ride is over.

You do not want patients who trust their health and happiness to the lowest bidder. Trust me on this. These are also the patients who don’t make their appointments, don’t pay their bills, and don’t value your time… until they’re in pain. Then they hound you and your staff as if you were personally responsible for force-feeding them cigarettes and Snickers and Sprite while ransoming back their floss and toothpaste (and they’re too cheap to pay the $4.95 ransom). These patients devour your time, profitability, and happiness—and they keep coming back for more. Treat them as you would flesh-eating zombies; run! If you are determined to speed things up, maybe you are better off trying cocaine.

As a species we’re idiots. There’s no way to sugar-coat the fact that people gravitate toward obviously self-destructive, detrimental, or just plain dumb behavior like moths to a flame or lemmings to a really scenic cliff. If this planet hadn’t been pummeled by asteroids, humans would have never surpassed the much smarter dinosaurs or Land Of The Lost lizard people. The proof is in our pocketbook.

Mankind wouldn’t stand a chance against these smarter decision-makers.

This depressing fact came up at a Reveal Diagnostics study club on using conebeam technology for patient education. As one doctor pointed out, that’s a nice way of saying “using 3D images to sell treatment to patients.” Oddly, his tone implied that’s a bad thing.

Whether you know it or not, we are all in sales. All of us. From the panhandler on Mission Street to the President of the United States and everybody in between (including teachers, actors, architects, soldiers, circus clowns, CBCT Imaging Center owners, and even doctors), every adult spends a considerable part of the day convincing others to trade. The vast majority trade goods or services for money; this includes car salesmen and dentists and me, by the way. The rest sell ideas, ranging from concrete proposals (pass Obama’s Jobs bill) to new ideas (learn calculus) to subtle emotions (enjoy more happiness or national security). My point is we all sell. So who’s buying?

Idiots.

Sorry to offend you (because you are a consumer, too), but it’s the sad truth. We buy stupid things at nearly every opportunity. Fresh food or fast food? Fresh water or corrosive Coke? Gym membership or cable TV? Savings account or casino night? 401k or 325i? Every day 6,000 Americans try smoking and 3,000 get hooked–and the package even says THIS WILL KILL YOU, in case your health teacher wasn’t good at selling the benefits of learning about health. Most of us drink alcohol, which is a slow poison that feels oh-so-good until we get alcohol poisoning or crash on the drive home. Many people spend their hard-earned money on illegal drugs, which have the duel thrills of possible imprisonment or death.

Left to their own devices, people will choose self-destruction and they’ll pay good money for it. Thankfully you can come to humanity’s rescue: sell them something better. Yes, you can and should use your sales role as a source of good. Sell your patient a crown before it becomes a more expensive root canal or extraction-and-implant, plus the original crown on top. Sell fixing a TMJ issue before the condyles look like hockey sticks and the patient’s headaches destroy quality of life. Sell good health and the happiness that comes with it. Sell yourself and your education. Sell a perfect smile and the confidence it instills. Sell a future free of oral pain. Sell!

This message opened a few eyes; I was really selling it. It’s not as easy as a pep talk. My doctors’ competition has such superior sales training and resources that this becomes a Tadpole v. Goliath fight. Mercedes, Apple, Las Vegas, day spas, HDTV manufacturers, People magazine, Carnival Cruise Lines, and even Starbucks all have professional sales staff with formal sales training and marketing and branding that make a small business owner like me weep in envy. If a person buys one ten-word coffee concoction each work day, that’s about $9,000 spent per year on heart-stressing caffeine and thigh-pumping fat. People line up every morning to throw away money and health in one hot sip. Dinosaurs would never fall for that; they were much more intelligent.

Humanity’s urge to Buy Stupid from brand name global icons of excess does not spell doom for all of us small business sales people. If you’re in dentistry… and you’re good… and you believe in doing good… then your work and passion should sell itself. You just have to feel morally comfortable selling. And you should!

Everybody on the planet wants a radiant smile. Everybody wants to be free of pain. Everybody wants to keep as many teeth as possible as long as possible. Most doctors have an amazing product, but they don’t feel right pushing it on patients because they don’t believe in actively selling. My message is GET OVER IT and, for the good of your patients, start selling. Save them from pain as well as spending their money on stupid self-destructive things. After you get the hang of it I’ll even sell you a celebratory carcinogenic cigar!

I am now only hiring and doing business with people more focused than myself. True, that bar is so low most people wouldn’t even trip over it. I admit that I am easily distracted by shiny objects and I once spent two hours hypnotized by a strobe light… or maybe it was epilepsy. Either way, this morning I discovered the wonders of working with focused, motivated, non-epileptic professionals. I can never go back.

First my web developer Curt (at Deploy Dental; I’m starting to get a man crush on this guy) called me at exactly 9:30am for our 9:30am conference call. He had an agenda, a to-be-decided list, systematic questions, goals for the meeting, goals for the next meeting, homework for me, and a date for our next meeting. Curt brought all this to our morning conference call. I brought a burrito. Curt even asked me if I’d have time to get my homework done by Tuesday. I said yes. He said I was lying. I said yes, more sincerely this time.

I had to explain to my new BFF that I have a time-addictive hobby called Reveal Diagnostics. Every day I’m learning software, studying dentistry, managing employees, overseeing financials, fixing networks, scrubbing floors, and trying to stand up to my work-wife Aimee. I don’t have more than ten consecutive uninterrupted minutes in a day, and during those ten minutes I’m assaulted by interesting flashy things.

During my ADD confession Aimee offered to do half of my homework. In spite of the grief I give her, or because of it, she’s incredibly intelligent and capable. I have no doubt she’ll not only do the job, but do it well and fast. She’s focused. I then handed the other half of my homework to Darin, my all-star radiological technologist with 20 years of hospital ER and OR experience. I hired him based on his professionalism and ability to learn quickly; at the time it seemed like a good idea and I guess it paid off. The work was done by lunch.

I later needed to look at two patient scans and a client called and needed my attention. Without missing a beat Darin passed me the phone and completed the scan work at least as well as I could have, and in less time. Darin is apparently immune to flashy things.

My Patterson rep (yes, I have one) texted me to confirm that my glove order had been received and would arrive tomorrow. He texted! I thought only friends and politicians used texting, but this guy (David Cingolani, to give him credit) is efficient and non-disruptive and… really good.

The AT&T internet guy arrived at the same time as David’s text. Our wireless network kept failing so Darin arranged to get it fixed. After doing his thing the internet guy asked me to test the signal and speed, and he stayed until I told him I was satisfied. He left his personal cell phone in case there were problems. Where are these people when I’m shopping at Costco?

I don’t even have time to tell people I don’t have time for them. We’re a small growing business with four employees (up to six in January!) and I need to focus on learning and building systems for this growth. At this stage I can’t take a daily flood of distractions… and when I think about it, even lying in my hammock reading a book I hate distractions (unless they’re my kids). Distractions are by definition unwelcome problems that won’t go away on their own (including my kids). I don’t want to deal with unwelcome problems (except kids)!

That’s why from now on I’m surrounding myself with people who are focused and competent and capable of addressing distractions before they reach me. My employees, my work-wife, my real wife (for the kids), my business partners… they all have more focus and bandwidth than I do, and they’re all extremely good at what they do. Now I can spend all of my time with my new strobe light!

The girls have taken over my hammock, along with the rest of my life. I now spend most of my leisure time chasing those two around the neighborhood.

I was stuck in traffic in the congested SF Financial District, to which over a half million people commute daily. Between liberal use of my horn and acceleration spurts that would terrify astronauts, I was cut off by a Taco Truck. Actually it’s a mobile Indian food truck, cutely named Curry Up Now, but to me all mobile grills fall into the Taco Truck category (or Roach Coach if it looks sketchy).

I was slightly impressed that a Taco Truck could beat me into the eight inch opening between moving cars. I was extremely impressed that owners of a Taco Truck are using 21st century marketing to its fullest.

See that? They have a website and a Facebook page and they tweet! I don’t even tweet… only because my friends signed a petition against it. Something about cell phone bills, disrupting the work day, my addiction to attention, and their fear I’d use them in my material. But I digress.

The Taco Truck has a Facebook page. I checked it out. They’re really popular! Hungry people (and wary health inspectors) follow the daily location of the Taco Truck. They sing its praises online. They share dining experiences… all for a Taco Truck!

This prompted me to do two things. First, I checked to see if my website and Facebook page were better than the Taco Truck’s. I’m redoing both. Second, I’m telling everybody who owns their own business (especially dentists) that they shouldn’t be beaten by the Taco Truck.

My dental friends bring in a half to two or three million in revenue (no, not take-home!) annually. Some of them have an established marketing strategy centering around a yellowing “Thanks for your referrals” sign hanging behind the front desk. Others assume that their amazing clinical knowledge will  translate into amazing referral numbers. Some pray. Some worry. Some blame their staff for low patient flow, and some are right. But few dentists spend the time and money to put together a professional, effective marketing program.

A very quick note on time and money–my lunch break is ending, my work-wife Aimee says. You can put together your own website and Facebook marketing plan yourself, but it will take time. Similarly in my backyard I could have done my own redwood deck, 15-foot pergola, sprinkler and drip system, hardscape, grass-shrub-tree-(whatever else my wife ordered) planting, stone retaining wall, and tool shed. After two months of discussion I found the time to buy and assemble the plastic tool shed.

If you’re running (or building) a million dollar business and taking care of a family and scraping together your own personal life, you don’t have time to professionally market. You’ll spend three months off and on writing about the cosmetic services you offer, and you’ll spend another three months figuring out how to get it neatly online and at the top of a Google search. Trust me, I did the same for my 3D conebeam imaging center… until I faced off against the Taco Truck and lost in traffic and online.

My advice: hire somebody. Do it now. Do it right. Do it fast. The first one or two patients you’ll get will pay for the costs, and the headaches you’ll save are more priceless than a MasterCard commercial. This wasn’t intended to be an infomercial but I know I’ll get “who should I use?” emails, so… I use Deploy (www.deploydental.com) for my Facebook and new newsletter stuff, and a small SF company for my upcoming better-than-the-Taco-Truck website. TNT (www.tntdental.com) has dozens of pre-made, custom look and feel websites specifically for dental and I recommend them to most people. Feel free to shop around and maybe find somebody better, but please find somebody. Somebody who’s not you or your overworked staff.

My new online marketing bar has now been raised and reset by the Taco Truck. My goal by the end of the month is to clear that bar, not limbo under it. Clear it with me.

Theoretically I could have done my own backyard, and I guess theoretically I could also learn how to build my own car… but my own handiwork wouldn’t look at all like this. If I made my own car I’d probably walk most places.

Recently a friend (also a dentist) was at Reveal and he asked me what I thought about a patient’s implant site. Pretty thin mandibular bone. Minor alveolar nerve canal high and dead center. Neighboring teeth crowding the area. Plus all the periodontal problems you’d expect from a 30-year chain smoker. In short, it looked bad.

I said it looked like a lot of bone augmentation and tricky nerve manipulation and probably a custom abutment. I also said I missed all four years of dental school (although I did get an A in high school biology) but I do know several smart and experienced general dentists and periodontists and an oral surgeon who would be happy to give free advice.

I’m usually a fan of advice from smart people, and everybody is always a fan of free. I thought my friend would jump at the chance, but he didn’t. He grudgingly admitted that he doesn’t always feel comfortable asking advice from colleagues he doesn’t know.. and less comfortable from colleagues he does know.

I empathize. I feel the same when I ask Aimee about fashion (apparently I’m stuck in the awkward part of the 80′s) or hair care (no, I really don’t cut it myself). But medicine is a growing, changing, collaborative field with few definite answers. I guess that’s why doctors “practice” dentistry instead of do it. To learn doctors need to openly discuss their cases, their many-many successes, and their once-in-a-blue-moon failures. It takes a big person to learn from his or her own mistakes. It takes a giant to help others learn from his or her own mistakes.

For this reason I’m offering free education at Reveal. In study clubs I’ll present anonymized cases (to protect the gutsy) and as a group we’ll intelligently and civilly discuss the options and outcome. We also have small 6-10 person closed focus groups. These groups meet periodically and follow one complex case from beginning-to-end, research a particular area, or just chat about whatever cases the members bring. I’m hoping to create a fun environment where freely discussing cases, attempts, failures, and lack of experience is comfortable… and even expected.

At the very least I can benefit and fill the Grand Canyon information hole in my own dental knowledge. After all, I have four years of dental school to make up.

I’m fortunate to have a great friend with great taste in cars and a great income to afford said great taste. I personally drive a vintage 2008 Prius, restored to all stock parts… but my weekend cruising car is a minivan!