Stop Educating Your Patients: Part 1
When you spend time educating your patients rather than appealing to your interests and needs, you have a harder time encouraging them to pursue treatment. How you communicate with them sets the tone for their decision making.
Seeking an Improved Quality of Care
I feel blessed to have met so many great doctors from all over the country through Clinical Mastery Series. One of the greatest benefits I’ve enjoyed while participating in the courses is the opportunity to have lots of one-on-one discussions with some of the greatest minds in our profession.
Although each individual I meet and each conversation I have is unique, at the end of the day there is always one common factor. I have yet to meet one single dentist who did not have a desire to improve the level and quality of care in their patients’ lives.
Is that not what we are all seeking? So, how do we do that? How do we improve the level and quality of care in our patients’ lives, which in turn brings more fulfillment to our day? Well, assuming you have attended a Clinical Mastery course, you obviously thought you needed more education. Educating oneself is key to growth.
I believe you were 100% right in making that decision. Undoubtedly you now have more knowledge, you are starting to see things differently, and hopefully the conversations you are having with your patients are starting to change. This was the natural sequence of events that I personally experienced and know many others are experiencing.
Why You Should Stop Educating Your Patients
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein
I would like to challenge you with a question. Is knowledge alone the key to having a greater impact on your patients’ lives? If you have all the knowledge in the world and you have the greatest skills in the world, what is the other key component missing to make the biggest impact?
How about an actual patient to use it on! What good is all that knowledge and skill if nobody is saying yes to treatment? Something it took me a while to realize and that I commonly see in other dentists is the false belief that we can “educate” our patients into moving forward with treatment.
In the past, I have been just as guilty as anyone in believing that if I can share all of my knowledge with a patient, then obviously I will be seen as an expert. They will immediately accept my recommendations and then leave my office telling everyone in the community how great I am. Well, the school of hard knocks has taught me otherwise and sometimes the exact opposite happened …