The Challenges Faced by The Budding Dentists

Since 1960, dentistry has been evolving and has reached great heights in improving diagnosis and simultaneously treatment of oral health of patients.

To be a part of this noble profession the ultimate motto of WE being the health workers remain to provide quality and standard services to people; to maintain the tight collar we have to abide few set of rules and ethical principles to achieve these goals. In the past two decades, we have witnessed significant raise in the number of dentists, dental colleges, and dental negligence cases on the other hand too, which alarms an increased demand for quality care by the patient, and also the advancement of dental technology in terms of diagnosis and treatment has created the new areas of ethical ambiguity and uncertainty, thus placing the dental practitioners in a challenging situation in patient care all the time. When it comes to run our own private clinics we, doctors are considered as the CEO of our setups. On the other hand we cannot manage only being the chief executive but have to be the producer of the same to gain heights. To enlist problems faced by a budding dentist would be as similar as to opening a can of worms which never ends. Our health care system is one of the major professions which continually changes and add on improvisation. New and fresh dentists face many challenges throughout their careers. From loans and monetary concerns to patient and office issues, these challenges affect both small town practices as well as those in larger cities to varying degrees. Issues faced by newbies in dental practices is vast and wide ranging. This list is not comprehensive, but it touches on some common obstacles dentists face every day. Let's just have a short outlook to same.

The biggest challenge or obstacle and highly voted would probable be patient accumulation and retention. Followed would be-sterilization and waste management in clinics, poor knowledge and attitude towards ethics and our fellow dental practitioners, increase in cost of oral health service, poor informed consent process, conflict in advertising, clustering of dental clinics especially in urban areas, diagreement to treatment modalities among dentists and patients (I guess the new as well as experienced will agree to this one) poor record maintenance etc.

Starting from the top, the most important challenge is acquiring new patients. This always rises a thought that the new patient leads to a growth in business, which, ultimately, is a kind of practice management strategy to retain and increase the avenue.

Now there comes our role to retain the same patient and make him our marketing tool. But, but here comes one of the biggest reasons for the discrepancy in retaining patient for the dental practitioner is lack of proper communication. Here comes the importance of "first appointment ".

Maintaining an one to one conversation with patient for any procedure to be done is very important. One needs to discuss the all the treatment modalities, the fees included, any complications if there and any post operative care. If there is any thing relevant to the patient for his utmost care that should be brought to his attention.

As it's rightly said improving relationships with your patients is one of the most important ways you can grow your practice. As I mentioned earlier they are the best practice build-up tool for any practitioner. Now coming to the next challenge citied which includes inadequate sterilization and improper waste management in dental clinics. Basically infection control protocol includes a number of specific measures that takes in PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), prevention of cross-infection, proper waste and material disposal, and more needed self and staffs protection. ADA recommends that dental clinics should monitor sterilization at least weekly with biological indicators. Biological monitoring is the standard method for assuring proper sterilization of dental instruments. Sterilization and disinfection ensures efficiency of the used equipments, eliminating cross-contamination, and ensuring safety for us, patients and our staff.

Recent study showed that the dental offices where sterilization protocol was not followed patients when asked about same reported that ''I feel uncomfortable to tell them about the same". It's a general outlook that many of the dental clinics don't follow proper waste management protocol. As it's correctly said that "Improper waste disposal contaminate the environment, ” It is therefore the duty of every dentist that they should check in that the waste from the clinics is disposed in a proper manner in the interest of safety of everyone. ” Many dentists are not getting attached to waste management companies and disposing health-care waste along with regular waste that create more hazards. Dentists should also be concerned with needle prick injuries in dental clinics and ensure a proper way to dispose needles after use. Now its turn for a ethical challenge that every fresher faces; it includes poor knowledge in ethics and attitude among our fellow dental practitioners. Ethics should be like a uniform code, every doctor, every dentist should wear the same one. But alas it's not the way we wish. Ethics represents a set of principles of professional conduct, rules and responsibilities to which every dental health worker must aspire to fulfill their duties to their patients and the society. Starting with respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice are the founding ethical principles that govern any dental practice. Therefore a primer course in early days of graduation on ethics, will surely help build the professional communication skills, and will help to promote personal as well as patient safety measures. Coming to further challenges-They say "Health is wealth. " Good health and wellness cannot exist without a proper oral health. One of the greatest barriers to a healthy oral health care is a lack of dental services.

The cost of dental care and lack of dental coverage are often cited as reasons that mainly individuals do not seek needed dental care on time and lack awareness regarding same. Thus in order to maintain the nobility of our services we need to increase the access to oral health care among common individuals and eliminate disparities. It's well versed - ''If you are not growing, you're dying. ''New advances in dental technology never ceases. On one note, it’s good, because technology advances the science and the ability to make our practice efficiently manage well. However, it’s also daunting because you don’t know where and how to start. So how to overcome it? Make it a practice goal, ask your colleagues, and start a little at a time. In the beginning don’t do it all at once, but little by little. Just like when we have a cake we don't have it all at once, we have it piece by piece, similarly. Technology is not a luxury anymore it's for upgradation to manage efficiently and effectively our dental practices. The process of informed consent is required for compliance with the law. Need of written informed consent requires through knowledge on the part of the practitioner, unbiased presentation of all options available, and consequences including costs and the probability of outcomes. It also requires the capability of the dentist to communicate effectively on a level to satisfy patient. Conflicts in advertising can be stated below like today's dental practitioners consider advertising as an important tool to generate awareness and knowledge among people but law says advertising by a dentist must not misrepresent fact, or give false interpretations. Thus, advertising should be in such a form that false expectations of favorable results must not be done.

Next comes most commonly faced issue that goes acceptance of treatment modalities by patients. In today's era of internet, it's not uncommon to come across 'google' patient who already has surfed his disease and its treatment options. It's a everyday scenario that we have situations wherein patients challenge the treatment plan of ours. "Patients should be made aware that each situation is different and any medical professional have learnt from their experience and knowledge about the same. To avoid conflicts patients can be given the right to obtain the second opinion which can make a patient mentally satisfied of receiving correct treatment and a gain in confidence to his operator as well.

Lastly comes the poor record maintainance by the dentists which can come in account of negligence. The dentist should know how to safeguard themselves against false statements made by patients which are intended to defame dentists in any mean.