Several

There have been over 20 long passionate discussion forum posts on the impact of social media on dentistry and the state of dentistry.

Here are some snips:

From David Clow - California:

I'm glad to see this subject under discussion, because it's more urgent than ever for dentists to engage patients in ways that restore trust and confidence. This is so not only for the immediate relationships between dentists and their patients, but on the grand scale, for the whole profession and the nation.

It still surprises me that for all the controversy surrounding healthcare reform, dentistry hardly enters the discussion. The average patient might think that dentistry has nothing to do with his personal health, and worse, that the entire profession is peripheral or even irrelevant to the big healthcare picture.

This situation has no winner. Patients like me lose when the profession fails to take its place as the first and best defense for systemic health. The nation loses when citizens still don't understand the links between healthy mouths and healthy bodies, and when we have to pay to remedy diseases that never ought to have happened. Dentistry loses by permitting itself to be reduced to an optional last-minute fixes.

The conversation Dr. Robichaux wants to have "face to face" is happening like a raging storm around dentistry every day--without the participation of the dentists. Patients arrive in your practice with their expectations and misconceptions fully-formed by new and old media. Whole classes of new dentists are graduating with sizable debt and startup costs and walking into an ambush of mistaken and negative expectations, not to mention a terrible economy in which many people are putting off routine care.

From Mike Robichaux - Louisiana:

David,

As of now, to the best of my knowledge, there is no formal campaign to promote the concept of the relationship-based practice of dentistry. I do lecture some but not many requests for this topic.

For over 20 years I spoke to every class at the LSU School of Dentistry on this very topic. A couple of years ago I was not invited back.

When I contacted the course director who had heard every one of my lectures and loved my presentations, he said that the students were not interested in what I had to say based on their reviews after my lectures. In speaking with one young lady a week or so after one of my lectures (the only time that no one came up after the lecture and spoke with me) she stated that she and her classmates talked after my lecture and they all agreed that I was lying and that no one could practice this way.

From Gary Arnold - Michigan/North Carolina:

The dental school experience just is not conducive to spread this message. I wish it were different.

In getting to know my daughter's classmates over the last 5 years, I was very impressed by the quality of person that they recruited at U of Michigan. Smart, personable, well rounded, and many had a mission driven, goal oriented approach towards their career. But dental school can tear one down after four years.

A look of "get out and make money" was evident on many of their faces at graduation. Their experiences were not always inspired by mission driven instructors. In my dreams I hope that I was able to influence a few and... hopefully they will continue to meet dentists that will inspire them to see the beautiful potential to truly serve people within our profession .

My conclusion is that you can't preach this in dental schools. The students need to experience it, first hand through their everyday contact with their instructors. Mentorship is talked about a lot , but, I fear it isn't as prevalent as we would think.

From Clay Couvillon - Louisana:

Here is my two cents....

I am 7 yrs out and have recently been reading about the "patient centered approach". I have read A Few Words from the Chair and Pankey's philosophy as well as Bob Barkley's preventive practice approach. I am just scratching the surface of this style and trying to figure how to incorporate and gear my practice in this direction.

I believe that this style of practice is impractical for the new dentist because most of us do not have the wherewithal clinically, financialy, or "socially" to garner the trust that must be there for this to thrive. For me I have been fortunate enough to have Started in an environment that centers around customer service. Dental town has been a priceless resource to sift through other people's mistakes and successes and "guide" me to some excellent clinical education programs.

From Lynn Carlisle - Colorado:

Clay, You make some good points about new dentists learning about this way of practicing. It usually takes 7-10 years in practice for new dentists to start asking the kind of questions that r/b dentistry addresses - some never do. As the discussion thread posts discussed, unfortunately dental students do not have any exposure to this way of practicing in dental school and are concerned with passing tests, boards and learning the clinical aspects of dentistry.

From Tom Risbrudt - California:

So the "expectation is being shaped for us", to quote David. Really?? Do you meet a lot of thinking, intelligent people who make health care decisions that way?? Apparently enough of them are, for you to write passionately about it to those of us who are holding out for the relationship-based, quality fee-for-service model.

David, you mention dentistry's position as in the front lines as the first and best defense for systemic health. None of us would refute that, yet technology seems to be taking away patients' responsibility for their own health. It is mind-boggling to contemplate the myriad of technological advances to attack disease. Yet, in 1946, C.C. Bass, MD, an epidemiologist and then dean of Tulane Medical School, discovered the role of bacterial plaque in the mouth as the causative factor not only in dental disease, per se, but numerous other conditions systemically. In 1946!!

And there is more:

Go to the discussion forum to read and contribute to the complete conversation: Dr. Robichaux's "higher conversation"

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