** Editor’s note: A good friend and extremely well known orthodontist sent this to me today after watching the recent excitement in Ortho101. As in all he does, he is spot on here and is speaking from hard experience as the best teachers always do. Take it to heart residents and young doctors!
The 10 top ways as a new doctor in the practice to ensure that your practice association fails:
- Start the relationship off with the statement “I am not being paid enough.” In spite of the fact that you will produce nothing for at least 1-2 years
- Assume that the older Dr. is out of date and cannot possibly be up to speed (or even ahead of how you are trained)
- Which brings up the fact… of course, that you know that you were trained in the best orthodontic program in the world!
- Don’t bother to attempt to call on dentists or recruit new patients in any way since you can’t possibly have anyone make an appointment with you because you’re not a partner (not comprehending that you will not become a partner until you begin to show some initiative and ability to draw new patients)
- Constantly comment to staff that “you are doing that wrong, that’s not the way to do it” in spite of the fact that the particular procedure has been time-tested over 30 years in the practice and there are reasons that things are done that way
- Grow angry that the staff “doesn’t respect you” as much as the doctor that they have known and worked for 20-30 years. Be sure to verbalize that every day just to make sure that they will now show you respect.
- Don’t carry a cell phone or see emergencies after hours since that is your “personal time”.
- If you are “on vacation”, refuse to take calls from the staff about a patient issue. That is the other doctor’ s problem
- Be sure to comment to patients on how bad the other doctor is. If you can’t make the outright statement, be sure to roll your eyes whenever the patient says, “But Dr. Smith (the older Dr.) said…
- And number 10!-Be sure to continue the negative commentary to all the younger doctors you meet, so you can begin to build a referral base for when you bust out of there and set up down the street!