Imagine spending 25 years trying to escape a single decision you made at 17, and no matter how hard you try, it keeps pulling you back.
It’s 2000, one year before graduation, entering the clinical section of removable prosthesis. That’s the moment I knew: this isn’t for me. The realization hit hard, but I was already four years deep into a five-year program. So what do you do with that knowledge? You finish. You graduate. You become a dentist because that’s what you’re supposed to do with a dental degree.
I worked as a dentist for a while, then tried escaping as a medical rep for two years, anything to get away from clinical work. Didn’t take. Came back to dentistry for ten years because bills don’t pay themselves. Then I tried the business route for three years. Failed again.
Fast forward to now. I’m running a clinic as a two-hour-per-day dentist while managing a marketing agency remotely. I’ve built what looks like a successful dual-career model. Perfect balance, right?
Wrong. Because here’s the paradox nobody talks about: I hate not having patients. Obviously. It’s worrying, annoying, means no revenue. No patients, no payment. But the moment I hear a voice in the reception area, I genuinely hope they’re not actually a patient.
Imagine living your entire career hating when you don’t have work, and hating it even more when you do. That’s the trap. You can’t win either way.
Most people would call this burnout or poor career choice or some diagnostic label that implies I should have quit years ago. And maybe they’re right. But somewhere after two decades of this push-pull, I managed to shift my mindset. Not completely, I’m not going to pretend I suddenly love dentistry. But enough to see a different purpose in it.
I’m a dentist for a reason. And I tired to know why for a long time. Maybe my actual purpose isn’t to be the best technical dentist. Maybe it’s to honestly remove pain from someone’s mouth, improve their health and smile, help them regain their self-confidence, while being honest, authentic, and refusing to turn healthcare into just a transaction.
I teach patients the importance of good oral hygiene and lifestyle choices. Not the cliché talk about healthy food and perfect habits that ignores their reality. I give practical instructions based on their actual environment, culture, and constraints.
I never tell a two-pack-a-day smoker to quit smoking. It’s not reasonable or practical. All I ask is that they reduce to seven cigarettes daily. Most people don’t ever improve. Most of them actually don’t. But if I manage to help even 5% of my patients reduce smoking or gradually quit by setting logical expectations instead of guilt-driven demands, I think that’s a huge gain by itself.
I don’t attack colleagues regardless of how fraudulent they are. I don’t engage in defensive arguments or ethical posturing. I focus mainly on making the next treatment my best ever. I analyze patterns, read and study even though I genuinely don’t enjoy dental studies, and I love passing over my knowledge.
That’s why hiring the junior dentist wasn’t just delegation, it was the strategic turning point of my entire dental career. Because if I can transfer what I know to someone else, if I can build a system that works without requiring me to be the one holding the handpiece, then maybe I’m not trapped by that decision I made at 17.
Maybe I’m finally building something that transforms the constraint into something else entirely.
Coming next: What I actually hate about dentistry, the specific mechanics, not just the general feeling, and the framework I built to survive patient interactions without losing my mind.
Tags: dentistry remote-business honest-practice delegation
Internal links: Junior Dentist Strategy, Remote Management, ADHD and Career Design
