Mother Teresa Said It Best

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

-this version is credited to Mother Teresa

Many of the great things that my office does for our patients are done outside the view of almost everyone. If we tell people what we have done, they frequent will say something like:

"People will tell others and you will probably have many new patients."

My response usually is: "We don't to the right thing because we expect to get something of value in return. We do the right thing BECAUSE it's the right thing.

Why Some Patients Return

Last week I saw a person that was my patient for 30 years and recently transferred to another dentist because she didn't want to travel to my office in Saratoga. This patient had fabulous teeth and I believe that in all the time that I treated her, I had only restored 2 or 3 teeth. I would have bet my life that she would keep every tooth for her entire life.

The patient was in my office because the mercury filling that I placed 30 YEARS ago had leaked and fallen out. When I walked into the treatment room the patient immediately explained why she had left my office and that she had such a bad experience with her new dentist that she NEEDED to return to my office. She explained that she called the new dental office which she had been to previously and explained that she was having discomfort on her lower right molar. The secretary informed her that she would have to wait a week because the dentist was very busy. At her appointment, the dentist told her that she needed to have her very small filling replaced and that she would have to wait another 3 weeks because that was the soonest that they could fit her into their schedule. (Aside: Doesn't the patient's pain matter?) My patient then explained that the dentist took out the filling and stated that the tooth was fractured and need to be extracted which accounted for the missing tooth that I saw when I quickly surveyed her mouth.

OH MY GOD!!!!! A missing tooth in the mouth of a patient who (in my opinion) should never had lost a tooth.

Anyone who knows my office will know that any of my patients who call our office with pain or some other emergency will be seen on the day that they call and I will do everything that I can to resolve the emergency as SOON AS POSSIBLE. Obviously, not all dentists have the same philosophy.

I am thrilled that my long time patient returned to my practice. Unfortunately, her short departure from our office meant that she suffered for a month and it eventually cost her a tooth.

My practice is totally dedicated to taking care of my patients even if comes at sacrificing some income. I stand by my office motto which, as you know is:

"DO THE RIGHT THING."

(Aside: I still hate when a patient that I have treated for years leaves my practice.)

Sometimes I Have to Say I'm Sorry

Every once in a while, I am presented with the proverbial "tooth from Hell" which is almost impossible to fix. I hate to lose in my battle with a tooth and I sometimes forget that I must stay on schedule. Unfortunately, last Tuesday, I met with one of those impossible teeth and my last patient could not wait any longer and rescheduled her appointment. The following day, I asked Donna to send my patient a gift basket with a note of apology. Upon receiving the basket, my patient sent me the following email:

"Jeez Louise, what a lovely treat basket! Thank you ever so much for your thoughtfulness- truly I would have waited but I was so exhausted from the day from hell with my class that I had to go home and have a nap! Really, you shouldn’t have! I’ll call on Tuesday to reschedule. Again, thank you for being a first class act. You know I think you are the best!" Taken aback- S

Physicians and dentists must never forget that taking care of patients is our number one priority and when we abuse someone's time, we must step up and say that we are sorry. I truly am sorry when something does not go as I planned or I am excessively late. You have my apologies.

Others Can Say It Better

Recently I told you about some of my colleagues complaining that I only blogged about me and that they thought it was pretensious. Yesterday I consulted with a patient who wanted to improve his smile for his upcoming wedding and wanted information about what his options were. He travelled more than 3 hours to the appointment and was not sure what could be done for him. He had been to my website and loved the cases that I had completed. I told my patient that one of his options should include orthodontic therapy but that I would be happy to do beautiful esthetic bonding prior to his weddding so that his photos would be wonderful. I then did a direct resin mock up to provide my patient with a preview of what I am thinking so that he could then intelligently decide if direct bonding was a good short term option. He was absolutely blown away by how great the mockup looked and how great his smile was; Today I received the following email from him:
"Tricia, thank you very much for sending the photos. I sure hated to have them removed:) You have an amazing facility and a brilliant team. I cannot wait to come back :)"

My job is to take care of my patients the best possible way that I can. Some of my colleagues around the country think that I am arrogant and pretensious. What I really think is that they resent my passion for dentistry and the fact that I LOVE my work.