An interesting fact about orthodontists, is that we are driven people. Top of the class, best grades, and a competitive nature are all common denominators in our specialty. I have noted that in school, competitiveness becomes an important part of advancement since scholastic achievement is often measured by your ranking. Fast forward to professional, and business life, and you realize the rules of the world are just a bit different. We are misguided at times because teachers favored the best student. In real life, patients don’t regard your grades and class rank as valuable. There is no study, that I am aware of, where your academic ability was in any way related to your success in the business of orthodontic practice. And yet our competitive spirit continues.
It can be a never ending battle of frustration if our goal is to beat the rest. Ultimately, there is going to be someone better, faster, cheaper, more popular than you. This sense of competition is not unique to the orthodontic profession. Not at all. There are competitive business strategies all across industries. This leads to the concept of finite players vs. infinite players:
The joy comes, not from comparison, but from advancement” – Simon Sinek
I, like many of you, have a competitive spirit. And yet I find the most fulfillment in outdoing myself, than beating someone else. Constant and never ending improvement is one of our mottos. For the team, for myself, for our practice.
Sean. Could not agree more. I took Mike Shuster’s Business School for Dentists one year course 25 years ago and he would repeatedly tell us that the majority of dentists he had encountered had a fear of financial success and success in general because there was no one there to reaffirm they had made the right decisions (as opposed to being graded in school and being compared to peers). He would go on to say that dentists under financial stress tended to make bad treatment decisions when compared to those who were financially independent. In many ways the ethical parallel is the age old adage that ethics is doing the right thing when no one is watching. In reality I think they go hand in hand. I paid my own way through college, dental school, pedo and ortho and started a practice from scratch forcing me to work two days a week 2.5 hours away and share an apartment with a roommate for 4 years until I finally paid my education debt down far enough I could afford to eliminate my roommate and finally saved enough that I qualified for a mortgage at 42 and paid off my last student loan at 47. There is no shortcut as I see it. We all pay our dues in one way or another. Orthodontics is the single best specialty in medicine or dentistry…period. It is essentially a solo sport, and like any other solo sport, striving for a personal best is the key to real joy. In 30 years I have yet to achieve a perfect result, but more patients than ever before get closer. Each one a new personal best. It is that pursuit of perfection that provides the energy and smile on my face with every new debond. I can remember every patient I waffled on treatment decisions that may have been for reasons that favored my financial gain vs. what was best for them. Fortunately for them, I have never knowingly succumbed to the temptation to base my decisions on personal financial benefit. I truly cringe when I see posts encouraging the race to the bottom, claiming all that patients want is six front straight teeth and that the future is $3000 orthodontics. I say nonsense. My goodness, PCD’s and Prosthodontists charge over $50,000 for comprehensive restorative…and that has a finite lifespan. We really provide a better service and should be compensated appropriately. I have never been busier nor as profitable nor enjoy my specialty as I do today. In my limited view, our only competition is our most recent “best ever” finish. Sean is absolutely right. If you are looking down the street you are looking in the wrong direction, it should be in the mirror and the records of the patient who just completed treatment under your expert care.
Well said!