I don’t usually write posts like this one.  Usually I start off with a point I want to make…but today I just wanted to stay in the moment to describe how I feel about a great day in dentistry.

My goal I guess is for you to stop and appreciate what dentistry can do for you…because we don’t usually do that…but at the stage I am at in my career, I can sit back and smell the roses.

Yesterday my hygiene schedule was filled with patients who have been in my practice for over thirty years.

One of them, Tom, travels up from North Carolina three times a year for his maintenance.  He never misses.  Sometimes he flies in and combines the trip with seeing friends and relatives.  Other times he goes on to New York to visit his son.  Obviously Tom is more than a patient…he’s a friend, a member of our family.

I remember when he first came to us.  He was overcome with fear from a lifetime of bad dental experiences.  Slowly, over time we restored him.  He gradually accepted more complex treatment including implants which were fairly new at the time.  Tom’s dentistry has held up…because of his care and appreciation.  That’s what makes me feel good.

My next patient was a woman I restored fifteen years ago.  Same story.  Although she lives a lot closer, she never misses her hygiene appointments.  On random occasions she stops in and brings us wine or fruit platters.

She speaks very little English…but we communicate.  I commented to her how beautiful her smile has remained and that the dentistry appeared as if I had placed it yesterday.  Even I was amazed how well she took care of it.

Upon leaving, she stood up and gave me a hug just uttering the words, “Good Doctor, beautiful work.”  At that point I was consumed by what this profession can bring…pure joy.

I am fond of using a quote:  “One thousand compliment + 1 insult = 1 insult”

Knowing that…many times during a day or week when that one bad patient comes in, I still carry that patient home with me.  I am human, after all.

But on this day I enjoyed one of those moments when I know why I practice dentistry.

Well it’s finally here.  The Art of Case Presentation is now out and available in both its soft cover version and digital version.  I presented the book at the Pankey Alumni Meeting on September 18.  You can order the soft cover format by calling 856 795 1121.  Watch this blog and CasePresenter.com for online ordering as well.

In the meantime the e-book version is available at Amazon.com, the iBook store and the Nook store.

This morning I was interviewed by Shirley Gutkowski at Blogradio.com.  I discussed the book and some of the ideas that I wrote about.

I spoke about some of my favorite topics like:

• The paradox of duty and desire.
• MEGO–Mine Eyes Glaze Over
• The Biology of Presentation-Dopamine and the Promise of Happiness
• Visual Storytelling an
• The Story Structure

Of course the book goes into much more detail, but you can listen to the interview by clicking here:

Take a listen and tell me what you think.

Did you ever wonder why dentistry rarely gets a fair shake in the media (and I include Hollywood in there too).  The Gallup pollsters have been reporting for years that dentistry is one of the most respected and trusted professions.  Yet, that’s just not newsworthy…there’s no story there.

Tonight I participated in a panel discussion on HuffPost, the live streaming video of The Huffington Post.  I thought long and hard how I wanted to represent dentistry.  The moderator used leading questions and controlled the discussion.  In my defense, I thought I did a pretty good job.  As a forty year veteran of the profession I think I have seen dentistry from all sides.

Joining me on the panel were two disgruntled and distrusting patients who had bad experiences, a reporter who was on the team that brought us Dentistry for Dollars, produced by Frontline in June, 2012, and an insurance fraud expert.  Obviously, the two patients told their tales.  One was a “my dentist hurt me tale,” that most of us have heard before…and will probably hear again at the next wedding you attend.  The other was a “he said I had 5 cavities when I never had a cavity before or since.”  Okay…if I really wanted to make the profession look bad I am sure there are some pretty ugly stories out there, like the graft that failed, or I went in for a simple filling and left with a root canal.

George Kennedy said it best in Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

The guy who really bothered me was the insurance fraud guy…I don’t know how many times he used the phrase “crooked dentists,”  but I really started to take offense.

Dentists (as the Gallup Polls tell us) are really good, honest people.  We are trying to do the same thing as everyone else—make an honest living and serve their patients as best they can.  I believe that.  I’ve met most of you at continuing education courses through the years.  I’ve stayed up late discussing how best to treat your patients.  I’ve seen you worry much more than many of my friends and neighbors who go to work at their jobs everyday.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/bad-dentist-practices/5182ac222b8c2a153d000299.

Are there crooked dentists?  Sure.  Are there poor service stories? Sure.

Dentistry needs allies.  We need groups and organizations that make us look a lot better than the way we are portrayed.

Here is a link to the HuffPost stream.   http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/bad-dentist-practices/5182ac222b8c2a153d000299

I would really like to hear from you…get mad…get loud…express yourself.

Recently a colleague referred to me as being a voice for the non-technical side of our profession.  I don’t know how to take that.  Through my forty years of practice I certainly worked hard to learn and apply the technical skills.  It’s just that the soft skills came more naturally to me and I really had to struggle with becoming a better technical dentist.  Through it all I came to realize that there aren’t two separate parts.  The technical and non-technical aspects of dentistry are joined at the hip.  The competent dentist must be skilled in both areas in order to succeed.

Sociologist Max Weber described charisma as a gift that few people truly possess.  Think Bill Clinton…quite a charismatic guy, wouldn’t you agree.  Weber defined charismatic authority as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person.  But what are the traits of charisma?

Olivia Fox Cabane in her bestseller The Charisma Myth tells us that charisma consists of two distinct traits…warmth and presence.  Sort of like Bill Clinton.  It has been said that when he greets people in a crowd, he makes them feel like they are the only one in the room.  And what about his presence?  Powerful, or what?

Charisma is certainly a trait any leader would covet.  That is why Max Weber called it a gift.

But warmth and presence sounds a lot like soft and hard…the same blend of skills and traits I feel make up the successful dentist.  Kind of like the ying and the yang of dentistry.

All of that is quite easy to digest…harder to apply but certainly easy to understand.

And while we’re talking about parallel traits, how about Stephen Covey’s description of trust as being a blend of care and competence.  Now all of these elements can work together but many of us are predisposed to one or the other.  A trustworthy, charismatic leader would probably get a lot of “likes” on Facebook.

But there is a problem with all of these elements says Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy, “people view warmth and competence as inversely related.”

In simple terms it means if you are very nice you’re probably not as smart as your colleague.  Cuddy tells us that’s not very good for female executives who are culturally trained to be, extremely warm.

In a study of Wall Street law firms, “technical competence was more heavily weighted in men’s numerical weightings as compared to interpersonal warmth for the female attorneys.”  And these technical skills were coveted more when it came time for promotions.

So what does all of this tell us?  Well, that the complete dentist is a blend of both types of skills, the soft and hard, the warm and technical, the caring and the competent.  But our culture views these traits as competitive (but they are not).  That being said, our culture favors one over the other many times.  I feel that dentistry, and dental schools have always weighted the technical over the softer interpersonal skills.  Maybe because we have been a male dominated profession for so long.

If you are the charismatic dentist…you probably are doing well.  If not, you will have to fill in your weak areas.  In the future the dentists who focused solely on technical skills will probably be working in a corporate environment where the warm and soft stuff will be handled by staff.  And those dentists who are only good at the soft stuff…well, they always had a tough time competing.

This isn’t a secret in dentistry.  Dr. L.D. Pankey, on his famous Cross of Dentistry held a place for Know Your Work.  A closer look shows an appendage off of that arm which further describes work as technical and behavioral.  That was Pankey’s way of describing the hard and soft skills, the warmth and the presence and the ying and the yang.  But the profession only saw the technical.

Dental schools, continuing education programs and consultants must teach dentists to become more charismatic.  Look where paternalism has taken the profession.  By not training dentists in interpersonal skills we have left a giant void in the profession.