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Work 4 hours during the day, come
home for lunch, take an afternoon nap, work 4 hours in the evening, have
dinner, go to sleep…wake up…repeat forever. Be your own boss, choose your own
timings and enjoy a comfortable life and routine. No wonder the lifestyle of a
Dentist seems appealing when you’re starting out as a dental student. Not only
dental students, your friends from other fields as well quite envy the life
they think you will enjoy after you graduate. It is a common belief even today that
all Dentists earn loads of money, enjoy the most comfortable work routine, are
their own bosses and generally sail through the working years of their lifetime
without any major glitches.
The reality…known only to the
Dentists and their loved ones is much different than the above assumption. Given
the many factors that exist from saturation to expenses to the cost of living,
dentistry today is not just about treating a set number of patients every day,
every month and every year and taking home a bag full of riches. Every dentist
out there is competing with the dentist next door and your practice is only
profitable as long as you are ahead of the competition. To sum it up, owning,
running and making enough money from your own private practice today can be
summed up in one word, “STRESSFUL”.
It is so easy to get caught in this
entire cycle of “earning to live” that somewhere down the road, we forget that
we should also be “learning to live”. Not 10-15 years in the future, not 2-5
years in the future, not even tomorrow but today, right now, in the present! Part
of this lack of “learning to live” mind set is also due to the fact that for
some reason, we as dentists have accepted without questioning the absolutely
questionable work hours of a private practice. Check any private practice out
there today, “10-2”, “5-9” and “Sundays by appointment only”. Now, there are
quite a few arguments that can be made against questioning this “golden rule”
of conducting business in dentistry but the ground reality behind why all
dentists prefer to operate in the 10-2 and 5-9 window can be summed up in only one
word, “FEAR”.
It is the fear of losing out on
patients, losing out on business and eventually losing out on money that keeps
most dentists glued to their chairs at that time of the day when they could be
enjoying the sunset with their loved ones, playing in the park with their kids,
catching up with old friends over coffee or dinner, working out to stay fit or
even something as simple as indulging in a hobby. The thing with a 10-2 and 5-9
practice is that in addition to being physically taxing at the end of the day,
it leaves you with a very limited to no time window to indulge in the things
your heart desires and craves.
At the end of the day, you go to bed
a dentist and wake up a dentist!
Except for the occasional “off-day”
that you take or the annual or bi-annual vacation that you think you deserve,
living day-to-day is what a 10-2 and 5-9 practice deprives you of for life.
This brings us back to questioning
these timings in the first place. For starters, what is the pot of gold that
awaits you at the end of however number of years of that you intend to practice
that justifies sacrificing the time meant for family, friends and self?
Not only is the lack of time not
beneficial for the overall health of your relationships and your mind set, the
worst part is the regret that accompanies the realisation after many years that
may be you should have re-organised your priorities when you had the time.
Why can’t a Dentist have a 9-5
practice?
I know what you’re thinking…what
about the rent? How will I earn if I’m closed while every dentist is open? How
will I survive? I will lose all my patients!!
What if I told you that you won’t!
You see, the problem with a 9-5
practice is not the patients…it’s the Dentist! It is us who have generally
accepted this routine as the only commandment of running a practice.
It is surprising how smoothly a
dental graduate transitions from being used to working from 9-5 as an intern
during his/her college days to being a practicing dentist working in shifts of
10-2 and 5-9!
This brings us to the next point. When
was the last time you attended college from 5-9 out of fear that if you don’t,
patients won’t turn up? ...Never right?
Why do you think it was so?
Because the patients who turned up
for a said treatment at your college did so by taking time out from their lives
instead. Either leaving from work early or reporting half-day, some even chose
to put in a leave for the day of their dental treatment! Here, it was the
patient who feared missing the appointment and the treatment instead of the
dentist fearing missing the patient and above all the money!
Why can’t the patient you treat in
your private practice be convinced to do the same?
There are range of benefits that a
9-5 practice can have on your everyday well-being, right from improving your relationships,
to your health, to your mind set, priorities, outlook and eventually the attitude
with which you approach life that involves both EARNING as well as LEARNING TO
LIVE!
All that is needed is a lateral approach,
a letting go of sorts of this FEAR of losing out, of failing, of not making it
and above all, sacrificing the best years and time of your life by following a
set pattern without questioning the “herd-mentality”.
9 to 5 Dentistry? We might just be
overlooking the key that sets it right for all dentists in terms of work-life
balance.
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