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Recently there was an opinion piece published in the British Dental Journal by a young dentist along the lines of dentistry being ‘not what they signed up for’. 

As I write this I have only scanned the article so far and will get back to it soon; I will write about it more but I was struck when I first read it that one of the individuals career goals was to be ‘respected as a professional’. For many years I taught vocational dental practitioners and we discussed the concept of professionalism. I used to tell a story from the very early parts of my career, in fact before I had qualified where I would argue with my Dad about what a professional was.

In the mist of my younger hubris years I would explain to my Dad with a flourish that I was becoming a professional.

He would ask me what that meant and why I would be a professional instead of someone else.

I was able to explain to him (I thought at that stage that he clearly did not understand to the heights that I would rise to) that I had peoples health in my hands. My Dad, who worked primarily as a motor mechanic but also as a service manager and a business owner for more than 50 years gaining huge respect from the people he looked after, he explained to me “if I don’t tighten peoples wheel nuts then there health is in my hands”.

We would go on to discuss one of my footballing heros, Henrik Larsson and the fact that when he travelled to Japan to play in the world cup he was unable to sight see or get drunk because he was doing his job as a ‘professional’.

The content of the young dentist article can be discussed further and will almost certainly be discussed by me here but it’s worth remembering that respect is something you earn not something that is given to you with any sort of qualification, title or badge.

Respect is one of the most fragile gifts that we can ever obtain.

It is extraordinarily difficult to cultivate and extremely easy to shatter in an instant by a single action.

Regardless of the state that dentistry might be in or that people might perceive it in, it is still entirely feasible and possible for every graduate to earn the respect of both colleagues, their patients, their families and their friends by the way that they conduct themselves, by the way that they engage in self sacrifice for the benefit of others.

Just remember to reach any sort of level of respect it’s one patient at a time, one day at a time, drip drip drip for decades.

Blog post number: 1489