Not just another pair of hands! Your team is how you can win, every day

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Posted by: Dental Design 11th September 2022

Headlines like to paint a picture of a profession and professionals under stress, but dentistry is an industry full of motivated and passionate people, who want to help patients and raise standards of oral health. Focusing on, or rediscovering, how much you enjoy and love your work can help you take any bad days in your stride. Concentrating on the positives doesn’t mean ignoring the huge number of people who need care they can’t access, or the frustrating organisational challenges that regularly top the list of what dentists worry about most. It’s about finding a sense of purpose in every achievement: a patient out of pain, another who was once phobic and is now booking (and showing up to!) appointments etc. Being able to see the wood for the trees can give balance to those feelings of being overwhelmed by the bigger picture, including things that are out of your control to change.

Often overlooked is the importance of building a core team around you, that do far more than simply assist. A core team that is knowledgeable, physically and emotionally supportive (to you, and your patients) and deeply involved in the treatment process can make the everyday more rewarding – and far less stressful. You may have a dental nurse who is a fantastic, natural communicator, for example, and excels at not only reassuring nervous patients, but dealing with misinformation in a clear and relatable way. Someone considering their options may choose them as their preferred point of contact before they give informed consent to go ahead.

Empathy and compassion are essential for the delivery of exceptional dentistry and in order to have both, you need to be engaged, connected and not feeing exhausted before you even start. When you work in a mutually beneficial partnership with your colleagues, you can not only find that meaningful connection, but also increase the chances of acceptance and a good final result. This is especially true if you’re delivering treatments like root canals; not always considered enjoyable, not least because of the myths around them, which often leads to resistance. Ask your team if they enjoy these cases and if not, why. Perhaps they have lots to learn about endo too. Offer the chance to participate in the earliest stages of planning, encouraging them to ask questions, along with your patient. Share your knowledge, build relationships and gather information. There are many reasons why an individual will not want to go ahead, for example. It could be cost, fear of pain, or they may have read or heard that RCTs have a high failure rate. They might be worried about seeing blood or having an invasive treatment that will take a long time to complete, with the dentist using multiple instruments. If they have been referred to you for diagnosis, pulpitis may not even be the problem – no RCT required after all.

When you build a core endo team of practice colleagues, they will learn about the various reasons for oral pain. They will also find out the success rate of RCTs is very good, especially when top quality tools and materials are used. Although discomfort tends to be minimal, any level can be enough to put someone off. During your early discussions, ask patients, “How can the endo team help with that?” Would music be a distraction, for example, or are they happy to have their hand held by the nurse? Tell them about the possibility of adding add more anaesthetic, if they wish.

When you take your time with each patient and let the team get to know them too, this can increase fulfilment and the sense of achievement that is necessary for enjoying your work and dissipating stress. Root canals are not gory – they are a quick and conservative way to save a tooth from extraction and ensure the vitality of the remaining pulp. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this efficient, ethical process, with such significant and ongoing benefits! Of course, it does come with risks, and without a 100% guarantee, but quality endo delivered by a team that is compassionate, engaged, skilled and experienced has every chance of leaving a patient happy and in good health for years to come.

When you build an endo team, you can help more patients say yes as well as giving your colleagues, and yourself, renewed pride in the job. They can develop and hone their communication skills, learn about pain and what makes a tooth restorable (or not), as well as see, in action, the tools and materials for conservative RCTs that respects the anatomy, rather than imposing on it. These professional partnerships can facilitate your own lifelong learning and enable you to consider each case from a different point of view and the various elements that will support its success. With this approach, you will focus on the positives as a team, celebrating each ‘win’, to really love your work.