Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

January 16-22, 201224 Practice Management United Kingdom Edition 2012 ENTRY DEADLINE 3rd February 2012 Download your entry brochure at www.dentalrepublic.co.uk or call 01689 899170 Y ou remember finals don’t you? Of course you do. Your examiners carefully selected a patient(s) for you to examine, diagnose and present a treatment plan. The finals patients were un- lucky enough to have more than one dental problem and you were marked on finding all of them and your ability to create a set of solutions for the patient. Afterwards most of us headed off into practice where a series of “finals patients” are paraded in front of us on a daily basis. Now these patients willingly pay us to make our professional judgements, offer our best solutions and suggest a fee for doing the dentistry! However, that’s not always what happens, is it? There’s something that happens in General Dental Practice (be it NHS, mixed or private practice) that is rarely spoken about in dental maga- zines, online forums or even at the bar at dental confer- ences. And it’s this: many den- tists consult with, examine, diagnose and treatment plan their patients, not in the way that they did for their finals patient, but by applying some sort of filter - a filter that the patients are completely un- conscious of. Such filters have several elements and in my 25 years of being a dentist fol- lowed by 10 years of coaching dentists, I think I’ve probably heard or seen them all (I’ve certainly seen the effects they create). The filter may have some or all of these components: 1Will the patient like me if I tell them about all of this? 2Will the patient come back if I tell them about all of this? 3Will the patient think I am over prescribing? 4(For returning patients) If I tell them about all this now, will they wonder why on earth I haven’t mentioned it before? 5Will the patient be willing to pay for all this? 6If I persuade the patient to have the big treatment plan, what happens if it goes wrong? 7As long as I make a note on the records, I am keep- ing myself within the GDC/ Banishing the ‘filters’ Simon Hocken discusses the reasons behind the clinician’s fear ‘Many dentists con- sult with, examine, diagnose and treat- ment plan their patients, not in the way that they did for their finals pa- tient, but by applying some sort of filter’