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What patients are for

Colin Campbell
by Colin Campbell on 23/04/19 18:00
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Just one or two final references to Daniel Sokols book, and then I’ll be done with it and on to something else. There is an extraordinary reference in his book, the concept of “patients as consumers of time”. What is meant and the context of which this is given, is where the health care professionals sees patients as nothing other than people who steal time from them, that could be spent doing something else. 

I figured this one out years ago, but that’s not to say that I have ever figured out a solution. 

In my proper working week, I am 2.5 days of clinical work. 

It was clear to me some time ago that the only way I could sustain being a dentist for decades to come, would be to reduce my clinical contact. The reason for that is that there is so much to do outside of the dentistry in being a dentist, that if I do 10 sessions of clinical contact, I need another 5 sessions a week of non-clinical contact, and that goes into the rest of my life. 

The concept of reducing clinical contact time (and there is no way that hospital consultants see patients 10 sessions per week) means that you can start to enjoy the time that you spend with patients, and not grudge it, because its stealing from something else, and like being a clinician again. 

This takes some quite deep thinking and some redesigning of your business model, if you are a 10, or even 8 session a week clinician. I still fall in to the trap though, when I’m working side by side with another clinician, of thinking that I could run off and do some “other work” which is seemingly more important than the work of seeing the patient. Best to remember that old thing about feeding the baby instead of weighing the baby. 

Dentists who want to own independent practices, which function well and provide excellent care, need to “direct” people to weigh the baby, whilst they spend time feeding the baby (and, also feeding them-selves in ways that make them enthusiastic, about doing their work) 

 

Blog Post Number - 1984

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Colin Campbell
Written by Colin Campbell
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