I read with interest, and a great deal of concern, Dr. Roger Levin’s February JADA column, "Interpersonal Communication" (
JADA 2006;137:239–40[Free Full Text]
). In recent years, numerous articles have appeared, approaching this subject with what I feel to be inadequate and faulty reasoning.
I have read articles by well-known advisers, presenting an approach of "learning to sound sincere when talking to the patient." This approach is faulty and remote at best, and it is detrimental to the practitioner, the staff and the patient. It is an affront to the humanity of the practitioner that he or she needs to be told or taught how to act, and not be allowed to trust his or her own instincts.
To try to teach the dentist how to feel or how to appear how he or she feels is a denial of what may constitute the person’s true self. To teach us that we can learn to be sincere or question our patients to allow them to open up and therefore trust us and not think that our motives in this manipulation are transparent is naive.
As an experiment, I, with a great deal of self-consciousness, said to a patient, "Tell me a little about yourself." Then I asked him how he felt about my making that statement. His response to the former was a "little embarrassment, and I didn’t feel like saying much." His response to the latter was, "I thought you were a little nutty." Of course, this is far from a scientific study, but I had to see if I really had the nerve to talk to a patient this way.
I recently found a journal article titled, "Getting the Fish to Bite."1 If an article is too embarrassing for a patient to read, then our motives are not merely suspect, but altogether deceitful. This method of communication is patronizing and demeaning. It is the way a television talk show host will feign sincerity. And what is the strategy? To get close enough to sell a treatment plan.
I am sorry, but I am a dentist, not a used-car salesman. The problem, I am afraid, is that there are those practitioners who fall for this form of reasoning. We dentists do not need to be taught sincerity or how to convince a patient to trust us. We can be trusted by being ourselves. Learning who we are will allow us to become more human and caring, and that feeling can be understood by those around us, including our patients.
Do not talk about your patient. Do talk about yourself. Talk about your family, your children, your friends. Be opinionated, but do not proselytize. You are a person with an opinion and feelings, and by opening yourself up to your patients you will encourage them to trust you, if that is what you want. But that is not your real goal. Your goal is to do the best work of which you are capable. If you have done your best, then that is what you need to take pride in. And pride is something to feel in front of your patients. They want to know you are proud of what you have done for them.
"How are you?" does work. It works with almost everyone you meet, everywhere you go. People want others to be interested in them. But with sincerity. And, most importantly, you must be a great listener. You may not always be interested, but when someone speaks, that person deserves to be acknowledged. After all, that is what you ultimately want if that treatment plan still is on your mind. Do not be afraid of the patient. Do not ingratiate yourself to gain acceptance.
You must become diverse. Never take the office home with you. Do not socialize with your peers. I’m sorry, but you do enough of that at meetings. That is inbreeding and will do nothing to make you more social. You have a job and, when you leave, you must become someone else. Go back to school to enrich yourself. Take classes that have nothing to do with your daytime job. Have something to look forward to when you leave the office. Your work won’t suffer if you take a Classics class, instead of reading about composites.
Never, ever, discuss the office, patients, etc., at home. Love your partner and your children and let them know that every day. If you do these things, you will become your full self, and if that treatment plan acceptance is your ultimate goal, you may surprise yourself and get it, and also a fuller life, along the way.
You do not need a practice management expert to teach you something you already know. Remember what Shakespeare said: "This above all: to thine own self be true."
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