I am really, really privileged in certain aspects of my life that people bring their difficulties and problems to me and ask for advice.
Make no mistake, I understand the position that I occupy when people do this, it is a privilege.
For that reason I have become more and more practised at thinking through problems and trying to figure out solutions, both for myself and for others – either inside of work or outside.
It’s really easy to say “don’t worry” but very difficult to feel it when you’re the one in the middle of the problem. So a better strategy for me now is “Let’s take this to its conclusion”.
Almost invariably, the answer to take it to its conclusion ends with money. The worst case scenario is that I could lose my job, my registration, my patient, my ability to earn. When you boil a problem down to that it is generally much easier to rationalise the problem in a financial sense than an emotional sense. There are very few problems that you encounter on a day to day bases which, when taken to their conclusion, lead to a dramatic decrease in health or death (these problems do obviously exist but they are rare to encounter and there is an inevitability to encountering these problems at some stage)
Let’s take as an example, a teenager choosing their options at school (I have one daughter who has already done this and one who will do it soon, I also have a son who will do it later)
To the teenager choosing their options, it’s the biggest thing in the world in front of them. It’s a problem and it’s a stress but when you get to the bottom of where the worry is and when you take it to its conclusion it’s a worry for the person choosing that they may define the rest of their life by the subjects that they choose at school. In essence, that means that they’re worried they won’t have the happiness in their life that they want to have because they choose the wrong subjects at school. Often that equates to not getting a job that pays enough money to provide the happiness. If you can break down happiness from money and then realise that if a decision is wrong, you just learn from the decision and take another one and in todays society you can relearn something else at any time you want almost for nothing, then the problem is removed because on taking it to it’s conclusion the conclusion is that it’s not really a problem anymore.
I can apply this to many things in my life and in fact and in the end I was able to apply it to my GDC case by taking it to its conclusion. The worst thing that would have happened to me was that the GDC would erase me from the register for a minimum of five years, effectively ending my career as a dentist. Financially obviously this is difficult because I would have been unable to replicate my financial situation in another career pathway, certainly for some time, but for me I decided I would just have to bundle up my assets, identify where I was and do something else (probably cutting peoples grass)
My family wouldn’t starve and we may have actually been happier if not wealthier if that outcome had arisen. My wife was entirely on board with that and supported my all the way through that rationale. That’s another key aspect of problem solving - the support from the people around you.
If you find yourself at the moment in a difficult situation then take it to its conclusion. If the conclusion is health related or death then I guess that’s something to be dealt with, with the support of family and friends. If the conclusion is anything else then it’s manageable.
Blog Post Number: 1158
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