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In my second practice as a recent graduate, I was working sole charge and had to extract a carnassial on a Labrador….I was still going an hour later. After being incredibly frustrated, I finally made a phone call, only to find out I was doing it wrong.
I considered myself lucky when practising in the UK to have a dedicated team member who was highly experienced in dentistry and performed all the procedures. I became great at avoiding dentals!
Since then, I have mainly worked sole charge in practice and so dentistry isn’t something I could avoid anymore. I had to determine if I disliked dentistry or lacked skills and confidence. I found that I didn’t enjoy certain aspects of dentistry as I lacked the knowledge, skills and confidence.
Dentistry is a very important part of veterinary practice today. Now that we know more, we should be proactive. I look back in horror at the number of dogs I never advised treating even though they had early dental disease, as it didn’t seem necessary to me.
In what is to become a very crowded marketplace for employment in the future, having an interest and being skilled in dentistry will give you a competitive edge. This becomes a win for the practice as you have the ability to generate a higher turnover and a win for you as you can negotiate a higher salary.
I would advise you to look at your mindset and ask yourself the same question as I did.
I would encourage you to become familiar with Carol Dweck’s work around the Growth versus Fixed Mindset. I can look back and realise the areas in my life and career where I had a fixed mindset. This meant that as I believed I wasn’t talented in dentistry, I wouldn’t be able to improve, and therefore, I wouldn’t bother with it. Now I have developed a growth mindset and so can employ a curiosity of learning and persist in the face of challenges as I know with repeated effort, my skills will improve.
Take the time to evaluate yourself in the following three areas of dentistry honestly:
Develop a growth mindset and be open to increasing your knowledge in each of these areas by taking courses and workshops. Then, go back to your clinic and apply that knowledge to increase your skills, which in turn will increase your experience.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Outliers, he discusses Anders K. Ericsson’s work on deliberate practice and the 10,000-hour rule to mastery. While there are some recent arguments against the 10,000-hour rule, people do agree that consistent, deliberate practice and focusing on gradual improvement will lead to an increase in your skill and, in turn, develop your expertise. However, you can’t do the same thing for 10,000 hours and expect mastery. Instead, you need to focus on where you can change or refine your technique to improve. When applied consistently, you will increase your skill due to a compounding effect.
What is your level of confidence? A lack of confidence can affect your enthusiasm for dental procedures. Remember when you first graduated, and everything seemed so overwhelming and challenging? Now, consider your level of knowledge and skill. As you have learned, been challenged and gained experience, what was previously challenging and scary now seems routine. The same applies to dentistry.
Apply the competence-confidence loop to dentistry. The more knowledge you gain and then apply this knowledge to building your skills, the more your confidence levels increase. The more confidence you develop, the more willing you will be to do more dental procedures, which in turn will increase your competence, leading to more confidence. I see this as an upward spiral effect.
When you are confident in your abilities, it is conveyed, consciously and unconsciously, in your communication with clients.
If you are not gaining a sense of enjoyment, engagement and achievement from dentistry, it may be because you have hit a plateau.
Evaluate which aspects of dentistry you find challenging and which give you a sense of satisfaction and achievement, and then do more of those.
Aim to improve your knowledge and skills to the next level by taking more advanced courses and/or spending time with more experienced practitioners or specialists.
Take the time to evaluate your current knowledge, skills, experience, confidence level and interest in dentistry. You can even separate this into a more detailed list of procedures associated with dentistry. You can make it as simple or complicated as you like, but I find that complicated doesn’t get done.
The key is to critically evaluate your current level and use this to determine in what areas you need to build knowledge, skills, experience and confidence.
Employ a growth mindset, focus on deliberate practice to continually improve and remember the competence-confidence loop to accelerate your skills. It isn’t just about learning but also about applying it to help you find enjoyment, engagement, and achievement in dentistry.
Dr Natasha Wilks BVSc DipCoaching CAPP is a Veterinarian & Coach who is passionate about helping veterinarians succeed in their career and flourish personally. Natasha graduated from the University of Queensland in 1999 and worked predominantly in small animal practice in Australia and the UK. She completed her Diploma of Coaching in 2007, is a Certified Social and Emotional Intelligence Coach, has a Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology and is a Certified Resilience Trainer. Natasha created High Performance Vets in 2011 to help veterinarians with their 3 biggest frustrations in practice: the challenges of the job, client interactions and improving their income.
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