I Could Not Say It Better

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger the pilot that safely landed a plane in the Hudson River retired yesterday after 30 years with USAIR. Sully made some damning statements about the airlines and other professional pilots.
To quote extensively from a CNN Report:
"I have been fortunate to have followed my passion for most of my life, working in a profession I dearly love."
Pilot experience requirements and pilot fatigue are among his chief concerns, he said. Outdated regulations and regional carriers that compete on the basis of cost, consequently hiring less experienced pilots, contribute to the profession's problems.

"Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it. In spite of the best efforts of thousands of my colleagues, that is not the case today," Sullenberger said in his written statement.

Sullenberger leaves his profession in worse shape than when he started "by any measure," he said.

Why am I telling you about this? And What does this have to do with Dentistry and my profession?

EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When cheap is what patients demand then low quality is what they will recieve which means that it will AWAYS cost more to redo the dental treatment and teeth will be lost. Perhaps Sully was referring to the regional airline that lost a plane and 48 lives when two inexperienced and poorly paid pilots crashed a plane in Buffalo last year.

I have recently started to see dentistry that is reminiscent of some of the work that we used to see in the 1970's and before the modern era of dentistry. Root canals ineptly done, undiagnosed periodontal disease, 'bonded white fillings' that failed before the first bite of food touched the tooth and beautiful natural tooth structure that is removed for crowns and onlays simply because insurance pays more for crowns than for beautiful, strong and tooth conserving bonded white fillings.

So what is this about? Sully said it best," Regional carriers (DENTISTS) that compete on the basis of cost, consequently hiring less experienced pilots (DENTISTS OVER-TREATING, PERFORMING TREATMENT THAT THEY ARE NOT COMPETENT TO DO, USING CHEAP LABS AND MATERIALS) contribute to the profession's problems.

What Sully and I are telling you is the same thing. When the public doesn't want to pay for quality the results will be lost teeth and lost lives.