"You are so good at this......."

I finally completed a very large case involving 5 root canals (by the endodontist), periodontal treatment and 3 implants (by the periodontist) and finally restoring 28 teeth that had been badly worn by time and very old dentistry. Treatment began in 2006 and was completed yesterday. I spent 20 HOURS in preparation time to plan out the case and 35-40 hours of actual treatment time with my patient in the chair... 55-60 HOURS of work.
My patient, a 57 yr old successful business man from Massachusetts, was thrilled with the results and as we were drinking coffee together when we were all finished with treatment he said to me, " You are so good at what you do. Why don't you have thousands of patients?"
I am ALWAYS thrilled when my patient is happy with the results of my work. As I have said in my previous posts here, most patients believe that all dentists are the same and 80% of the time, they are absolutely correct. It DOES NOT matter which dentist they go to because the work will be about the same. The top 10-15% of dentists do superb dentistry and patients owe it to themselves to seek out that group of dentists that are passionate about what they do and how they treat their patients.