Why Some Dentists Don’t Care… And Why It Matters
Do I really care? I saw a video of a dentist on Instagram talking the other day saying he doesn’t care if his patients brush or floss and what he said, honestly shocked. Stick around to the end because I think you’ll be surprised what I have to say about this. My name is Larry Dougherty. I’ve been a dentist for 16 years and you can find me here at my practice Rolling Oaks Dental in Garden Ridge, Texas. So I’m watching a video of a dentist in a video on Instagram the other day, and he’s saying into the camera,
I don’t care if you brush your floss. I don’t care if you don’t want to fix your teeth or I don’t care if you do what I recommend or don’t recommend. I don’t care if you wanted to get worse, so I have to go in later and do something more extreme.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I got a little tired of hearing the guy saying how much he didn’t care. I don’t even think I watched the whole video. I’ll say two things about this. The first thing is I really hope this dentist doesn’t actually feel this way and that he was speaking this way for some shock value to get some attention. Obviously, he got my attention because I’m here talking about it, so it worked to that regard. Let’s assume for just a moment that he doesn’t actually feel this way and he just misspoke or he was speaking this way for attention. I think what he was trying to say was that he respects patients’ autonomy to make decisions for themselves and he won’t take it personally if a patient doesn’t follow his recommendations or advice. I’d like to hope that’s what he was trying to say because that’s exactly how I feel.
That’s a sentiment I can totally agree with. I make suggestions to patients, but people do what they want to do and I respect that no matter what it is. I actually think it’s very important to express to patients that the decision to move forward or to not move forward is their own decision. The days are long gone of the attitude of doctor’s orders or patients blindly following a path against their own judgment because the doctor told them to do something. I’m glad for this actually. I don’t think that’s a great framework for a doctor patient relationship. I really hope that this dentist was just trying to express a sentiment like this in a controversial way, that he doesn’t want his patients to take his treatment advice to please him, that they should do what they want. I totally agree with that. The second thing I’ll say is this.
What if he didn’t misspeak? What if he said what he actually meant? If that’s the case, I think that’s a huge red flag for patients and a sad place for him to be as a healthcare provider. We’re talking about health care. That’s part of the job. If you ask me if I truly care about every single patient I’ve seen over the last 16 years, the answer is yes. That’s actually one of the easiest parts of the job. A human being walks in the door of your practice and asks you to take care of them. You use your skills and knowledge and resources at the practice to figure out how to take care of them. You synthesize all of that in your brain, mix it with some empathy and compassion for your fellow man and care, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Isn’t that what this is all about?
Isn’t that what’s like separating us from AI and robots and machines at this point? We have the capacity to care. Care is huge. If this guy doesn’t care about the patients, what else does he not care about? Is everything sterile in the back? Did everyone get paid last week? What does he actually care about? I’m not sure. I want to know the answer. Care is important. It’s what we do. I care what my patients do. I want to do what’s best for them. I feel bad for a dentist that doesn’t care. Maybe you should go find something else to do. Caring about the patients, caring about the quality of the work, the trust, the respect that comes with all of this. That’s a key component to the joy and privilege of being a healthcare provider. I actually try to use the word care as much as possible throughout my day, and I encourage my staff to do so as well. It’s truly the foundation of what we’re doing. Be very wary of people that say they don’t care. It’s a dangerous thing.
