Why dentistry’s pronouns are ‘we’ and ‘us’

Why dentistry's pronouns are 'we' and 'us'

Dentist Sharif Islam gives thanks to the work of dental nurses and explains why, for him, any successes are a team achievement.

As the dentist I often get the credit. There’ll be a positive review online or an email sent through with a complimentary message about me. But when I respond to the patient to thank them for their kind note I always use ‘we.’ We are glad to have met and surpassed your expectations. We are profoundly gratified that you are happy. It was a pleasure for us to help you.

Because regardless of whatever innate bravado I may have on any given day I am acutely aware that there is no sole credit on this picture. As appreciative as I am of the patient’s trouble to provide any positive feedback at all, I feel obliged to remind them that their experience was the result of a collaboration and I would hasten to add that my colleagues make a more profound contribution than myself.

At the beginning of my day I walk into a room that is organised and neat, where every instrument is sterile and pouched, where not a single, solitary blemish or spot adorns any of the worktops or chairs. This is my nurse’s surgery. I just work here. When I need to know where something is, I rarely need to ask. When I need something to hand it magically appears in front of me. If I need something charted on the computer it happens behind me.

Imagine that. Let it sink in for a moment. A person so organised and efficient their actions and attentiveness have an almost supernatural clairvoyance. They willingly forsake the adulation they easily merit in order to make their dentist look brilliant and competent.

The dentist may be the star of the show in receipt of every accolade, but the nurse is the art director, set dresser, props manager and trusty sidekick all rolled into one. A dental nurse is the professional equivalent of a human dynamo, always in motion and powering the work in the background, lubricating the entire operation and without whom the practice would simply grind to a lethargic stop.

A privilege

The first person the patient meets as they enter the practice is our receptionist, whose smiling face and gentle tone have already diffused their anxiety long before they sit in the dental chair. And often this receptionist is a multi-skilled dental nurse, and as such knows exactly how to manage the patient’s expectations, reassuring and easing them into a tranquillity that spares the dentist the same effort.

Dentistry can sometimes seem like a lonely profession for the practitioner, supposedly huddled away in the corner of his or her surgery browsing potential new purchases on Amazon or ranting on Tiktok between writing up notes.

But it really isn’t. It is in fact a privilege to have someone with you in the room who unconditionally supports your work and goes above and beyond to help you. When the work succeeds they congratulate you. And when it doesn’t they reassure you. It’s a wonderful team and you get to be a part of it.

And yet bizarrely renumeration for dental nurses all too often reflects a rather shameful attitude by the practice towards their value. Their role is sadly regarded by too many principals as expendable and their meagre salary rarely reflects the value they bring to the work. Try to imagine how much of the practice income would be diminished if it were not for the efforts of our dental nurses. How much less efficient would the work be, how much more time would be needed to locate and arrange materials, and how many subsequently frustrated patients would choose their treatment elsewhere? And how much colder would your coffee become…?

Difference is priceless

Dentistry is an expensive service to provide. In addition to staff costs the material and energy costs are themselves are significant and always increasing. But all successful businesses invest in their staff, recognising that without their essential contribution that business would fail.

The profits are wonderful and I am an unashamed capitalist but how many more engraved golf clubs do you really need? Spend some more of it on your staff and see what happens next. A happy team that isn’t taken for granted looks forward to their job and radiates that energy to everyone around them, patients included. They make the difference – and that difference is priceless. It more than pays for itself.

At the end of every working day, I seek out each and every one of my colleagues and thank them sincerely. I humbly suggest that every practitioner remembers to do the same, if only to remind themselves that the person facing them reciprocating that gesture made their day possible and successful.

You didn’t do all that work and see all those patients. And neither did I.

It was us. We did it together.

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