Practice Management

Art and flossophy

June 5, 2013 By Trish Walraven 4 Comments

Hal Mayforth must really like dental floss. Therefore I like Hal Mayforth, and as much as I used to be an evangelical hygienist who preached that there was only ONE WAY to dental health, and that was through flossing, I have since become a little more ecumenical in my approach: there are many paths to righteousness. WaterPiks, Stimudents, Superfloss, Sonicares, Soft-Picks, angled flossing gizmos, they’re all okay in my book of holiness as long as patients aren’t looking all stagnant between their teeth when they visit our office.

In your office, you should still promote flossing as well, since it’s the gold standard of interdental cleaning, patients understand its necessity, and they’re expecting the lecture from you, but they still won’t do it, maybe.

Or maybe if you let something else do the talking, they might floss? That’s where Hal Mayforth comes in. He’s an illustrator whose style may already feel familiar to you. It should; he’s been doing this sort of thing for over 35 years. His keen humor might look really good in your operatories, in your reception area, along the walls, and it just so happens that he’s got a few prints for sale about dental health if you’re looking for a way to lift up the level of levity in your practice.

When he’s not tending to his teeth, Hal Mayforth is busy getting his work published in national magazines like Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Forbes and many others. You know, the ones who still actually print on paper. And his sketchbook is fun, too. I borrowed a couple of sketches from it to display below for you to enjoy, and mostly, for you to get a sense of his focus.

It would make me happy for you to Visit Hal’s website and take a look at his creativity. If for nothing else, you need a smile today.

And isn’t that what dentistry is really about?

Dental office acronyms

June 25, 2012 By Trish Walraven 3 Comments

One of my favorite dental blogs is the AGD’s The Daily Grind, with today’s post by Scott Jackson, DMD, MAGD sticking up like a wonderful, poignant nail that wants its head to be hit by this hammer of humor awareness. BAM! BAM! BAM!

In the midst of savoring life, Scott has also realized that textual shortcuts just might be the future of communicating in his dental practice, and so has offered up a few acronymic suggestions to ease the conversations in your office as well:

IGS……..I’m going to scream
WWIT…….What was I thinking?
DAPDA……Dog ate patient’s denture again
LCNHLTP….Lab case not here, lie to patient
IHDD…….I hate doing dentures
INAV…….I need a vacation
CTOSN……Call the oral surgeon, NOW!
IPTDS……I perforated the darn sinus
YAIOTP…..Your attorney is on the phone
INAGOW…..I need a glass of wine
SMAY…….Staff mad at you

There’s more!!!! but you’ll have to go here to read them, because that’s just how it works, this blogger thing. Borrow a few and it’s teasing and plugging. Take ’em all and it’s stealing. And if you have a hammer, well, aren’t you just supposed to hit nails on their heads when they make you smile with dental humorosity?

I now feel the urge to add a witty acronym of my own, but it would probably be something suckie uppie like:

SWTB……Scott writes them better.

Does your pedo blow?

June 19, 2012 By Trish Walraven 1 Comment

Here’s proof that pediatric dentistry attracts “special” people – the staff of Teays Valley Pediatric Dentistry and Huntington Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics getting it on and making the right kind of viral video, complete with outtakes. It’s got humor, it’s got sexy, it’s got “we didn’t try hard to get this just right.” And it works, because the following is just plain fun to watch:

So how about it? Does this video make you want to work with the crazy gals? Definitely. But what about sending your kids to become patients in this office? Lower your eyebrows and listen for a moment. You’re just seeing the tip of the insanity. They’ve probably done worse, much worse than gambled with candy. Children shouldn’t be exposed to irresponsibility of this magnitude, and so the parents should be made aware of this seedier side of pedodontics.

Do you remember the drug-induced rant of David After Dentist? To think that a dental professional would bring into question whether or not this was real life. We don’t need none of that existential nonsense. Pediatric dentists should stick to hiring dried up old biddies that don’t like kids. They may not have a lot of personality, but at least they’ll shine the light where you need it instead of dancing around pretending to be Ke$ha.


(just kidding. Party on, you instigators of fun.)

Ethics videobites

March 28, 2012 By Trish Walraven 2 Comments

Today’s video from “The DEZiree Show,” produced by DentalEZ, like most dental humor, is almost there:

So you watch this clip, then you wonder, how many hygienists in job-saturated markets don’t even have the luxury of being able to wrestle with these sorts of ethical dilemmas? They’re just happy to have an income. And if you don’t want to work faster than you should, there’s the door, honey. We’ve got five more hygienists waiting for your position when you leave.

If you must ever make a decision to follow your halo out of a practice like that, remember, there are also dentists who would rather have ethical hygienists than ones who will do whatever they’re told to do regardless of whether or not it’s best for patients.

Just please, promise yourself, you will never, NEVER, consider taking a personal day to go watch a movie, especially NOT the upcoming Twilight one, like DEZiree is pretending to skip out for. Eyes will roll as your credibility sinks beyond all hope.

And a shirtless Robert Pattinson is just one of those things you can’t unsee.

Quantum leap year

February 29, 2012 By Trish Walraven 1 Comment

Imagine that you are back about two decades ago, watching one of the most popular sci-fi shows on primetime television:

Theorizing that one could earn over one million per year for a lifetime, Dr. Mike Kesner led an elite group of dentists into the Arizona desert to develop a top secret project, known as QUANTUM LEAP. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Kesner prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself working only two days per month, opening multiple practices, and facing a mirror image that often wore dresses. Fortunately, contact with his consultants was made through brainwave transmissions via Art, Debi, Logan, Barbara, and Greg, who appeared in the form of holograms that only Dr. Kesner could see and hear. Trapped within the grip of dentists fearful of change, Dr. Kesner finds himself leaping from dental practice to dental practice, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap to one billion dollars.

Is Mike Kesner the new Scott Bakula? Yes, but only if you ignore the fact that Bakula later starred in Star Trek: Enterprise and let all his sci-fi potential curdle out into TV irrelevance.

I say this because over the past weekend as I was whisked off to Scottsdale to stay in the va-va chic retro Hotel Valley Ho with the rest of our dental team, the only prior connection that I’d ever made with Dr. Kesner was on the computer. Our practice has been working with Quantum Leap consultants for a few months now, trying to improve our case acceptance rates, increasing our net; you know, having to look at the money side of dentistry. Any time we had a lapse in the schedule, I’d hear a wuh WAH wuh WAH charliebrown adult murmuring from the op across the hall, or I’d pull my own training module up in front of PracticeWorks from the internet and learn tips and techniques from the video and audio recordings that Dr. Kesner has preserved for his clients. We’d all seen him by now, explaining how his systems work to make dentistry less stressful and more profitable.

But there were no special effects, no smoke, no superstar moments, no promises even. When Dr. Kesner and his consultant team hit the stage this weekend they mentioned that it wasn’t even about pearls. You don’t make big changes with pearls. You make changes with systems, and by tapping into the world of the average person, where the bread and the butter of dentistry lies, and fill the needs that patients want you to fill. People have the internet these days, can’t they diagnose their own need for a root canal?

That’s not the point though, because of course you’re going to use your own best judgement when planning treatment. And you should never compromise the care that you provide to people. Bottom line is that as long as your patients know that you’re listening to them, they’re more likely to trust your opinions and to move forward with care. There is a LOT of shady dentistry being reported lately, what with Medicare fraud and other things like the dental chain on the other side of town that seems to aggressively treat decay that your Diagnodent can’t find when patients visit your office for a second opinion.

In honor of Leap Year Day, then, I’m doing this plug for Quantum Leap Success in Dentistry. Not because I’m getting paid by my boss to bring them more business or that anyone put me up to it. I’m giving them a plug because I actually have hope. Hope that Quantum Leap will improve the culture in our practice, and hope that it will preserve the joy I get from the honor of taking care of our dental patients.

And also because at the next meeting Dr. Kesner mentioned that he might be putting on lipstick and stilettos.

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