Somewhere in the last couple of years I crossed a line, I think it might have been into middle age (I hope it wasn’t old age)
Funnily I didn’t cross that line at home and I definitely didn’t cross it with my kids, I don’t think I crossed it with triathlon but I definitely crossed it at work.
To become ‘experienced’ is to become ‘cautious’
To become ‘experienced’ is to begin to learn from ones mistakes.
To become ‘experienced’ is to admit that one makes mistakes.
To become ‘experienced’ is to be able to say sorry.
To become ‘experienced’ is for your ego and your arrogance to start to dissolve.
Some surgical procedures are seen as ‘a young man’s game’. That was always said of head and neck cancer. From my involvement in that type of care I think I was probably never young enough; I couldn’t leave it at work and that’s why I didn’t go on to be a head and neck surgeon.
One of my friends did though, he is amazing and I have conversations with him often about the issues he faces at work. In his first five – ten years as a Consultant he was arrogant (he has the skills to back it up) he would perform enormous procedures playing God with patients, trying to save them but also glorifying himself in the huge and complicated procedures he could provide. As he comes closer to retirement things have changed and his consideration of what’s possible for patients has reduced and reduced. He is ‘conservative first’.
This may come from financial security, it may come from personal security or it may come from being worn down by the emotional effect of complications.
My approach to every patient in front of me now is ‘as simple as possible’. Sometimes ‘as simple as possible’ to achieve what a patient needs or wants is quite complicated and we have the facility to provide any aspect of dentistry you would like but that still doesn’t mean that we don’t spend time talking patients out of treatment or suggesting a simpler solution.
In case you were wondering, it’s not boring this, it’s hugely, hugely fulfilling but to move from being an arrogant young man who was annoyed that people who called him a dentist because he wasn’t a dentist he was an ‘oral surgeon’ to move back to the situation of being proud to be a dentist who just happens to do some oral surgery is a wonderful place to be.
Recently I learned this from a couple of my friends who are hugely more talented and hugely more important in society than me. For the avoidance of doubt of any dentists reading this, these guys have proper jobs and do important things – save people’s lives.
Separately when I was out with both of them someone asked them what they did for a living and unconsciously both of them said “I’m a doctor”. They didn’t expand on that statement, they made no elaboration of what they did for work. Neither of them are ‘just doctors’ but they have obviously reached a stage (faster than me) where they don’t have to explain.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed at how little I listened to the older guys when I was young.
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