Trust by Someone Who Understands the Meaning of Trust

I have a patient who recently returned to my practice after a five year hiatus from dental treatment. He recently retired as a psychiatrist and is a friendly, affable and interesting patient and he wants his mouth to be healthy again. The one request that he made was that he complete all of his treatment before the end of the year and so we schedule 2-3 hour appointments with a few breaks in between treatment.

On one of the breaks I showed him the tooth decay (in a photograph) that was under his 25 year old mercury filling. Everyone who is my patient knows that I take photographs of almost all the teeth that I treat so that I can show my patient WHY I am treating a tooth and provides assurance to them that I am honest, have integrity and worthy of their trust. When my patient looked at the photo of his tooth he said, " I trust you because it you didn't do an excellent job it would eat you up and you couldn't sleep at night."

I could not believe that in the very short time that my patient, the psychiatrist, was able to understand and determine who I am and what my concerns and values are.

I hope that it does not take someone who analyzes people for a living to know how important it is to me and my staff that we take care of you the best that we can...not because you pay us to do  that but because it is OUR NEED to do so. It would not be an overstatement to say that it ruins my day when treatment does not meet MY expectations for the treatment that YOU deserve.e