THE EDITOR'S CORNER
If you agree that there is a need for renewed efforts at practice building in light of a growing economic threat to orthodontic practice and if you further agree that there are evidences of a growing discontent on the part of the public and/or on the part of public leadership figures in government, unions, and consumer groups; and that this discontent is based in part on an erosion of the image of professional people and its replacement by an image of a businessman whose primary concern is money--then we ought to talk about "the invisible man".
The invisible man is the doctor who has delegated everything and has all but lost contact with his patients and parents, and their dentists. He communicates with referring dentists with form letters and check-off cards. Often, they don't even know that he has. They rarely communicate with him about patients and frequently can't find the letters and notes he sent them. The fault may not be entirely on their side. Everyone would benefit if more time were spent on dentists.
Parents like the doctor to present the case, to give them progress reports, to make the post-treatment report. There has been a tendency to delegate all of these to an assistant or to eliminate them entirely, which could be one of the greatest practice administration errors we could make.
TALK WITH CHILDREN, the poster says, AND SEE THAT EACH DAY EACH CHILD ENJOYS SOME SMALL SUCCESSES AND SOME RECOGNITION AS A PERSON. Is there a better expression of the caring relationship between an orthodontist and his patient?
Now is not a time to downgrade the business aspect of orthodontic practice. It anything, we need a better knowledge of business and a better application of modern business management methods. However, it is an error to make the business of practice an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, which is to free the doctor from spending time inefficiently and on matters that can be handled by auxiliary personnel or machines. It is not clear that we always knew what we were freeing the doctor for. Carried to an illogical conclusion, it frees the doctor to do absolutely nothing. Frequently, far from freeing the doctor, it entangled him in a large organization whose saving grace was that it permitted treatment of more patents and that there were more patients to treat.
While it is important to have a staff that conveys the image of an efficient, friendly and caring organization, it is as important for the doctor to participate in this to the fullest extent that his time and talent will allow, and one purpose of the efficient staff is to free him to spend more time in direct contact with patients, parents, and dentists. It really boils down to an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the doctor and his staff. If a doctor is a super mechanic and a poor communicator it would be counterproductive to replace him with an inferior mechanic and make his chief task communication. On the other hand, if he could be replaced with a satisfactory mechanic and assign certain communications to a staff member who communicates well, then there are enough additional areas for the doctor to be involved in, many of which depend on his visibility.
If the doctor has the time, here are some areas outside of actual treatment that he could be concerned with: the economic flow of his practice; patient care, patient flow, patient success; patient and parent involvement, education and communication; dentist appreciation, dentist communication, dentist education; post-treatment evaluation; feedback from patients, parents, and dentists; self-improvement through continuing education in orthodontics, management, allied fields, study club activity, attending meetings, taking courses, and reading a wide variety of literature in orthodontics, allied fields and matters of general interest outside of dentistry; clinical research; public relations in its promotional sense in one's practice and in the community.
It is a survival factor for us to live an image of a doctor who really cares about the professional and personal problems of his patients, their parents and dentists, and his staff; and to get rid of "the invisible man".
