Last week I attended the 102nd
Hinman Dental Society Meeting in Atlanta. During the three-day meeting, I attended three excellent CE courses with an average attendance of greater than 300 dentists. The three meetings allowed me the opportunity to catch up on the latest information on Endodontics, local anesthesia, and current strategies for achieving growth in a dental practice. During each session, I took many pages of notes in an effort to retain the most important new information so that I could take action on it following the meeting.Looking around the lecture rooms, I was amazed to notice that only about two out of every twelve dentists were jotting down notes. Perhaps their memories were superior to mine, but more than likely, they didn’t consider the new information important enough to retain. I can only assume that they would not be making procedural changes in their offices based on the new information.
This observation demonstrated a major reason why some practices are stagnant, or even faltering, and others are continuing to prosper in this crazy, unpredictable economy we’re in. I’ve found that the dentists that are diligent about keeping their practices fresh with new information and ideas tend to better “weather the economic storms.” I speculate that if we were to analyze the practices of the note takers and non-note takers, we would find the note takers as a group would be doing much better in their practices than the non-note takers.
Attending a great CE course or even hiring a practice management consultant become great investments only at such a time when you’re mentally ready to embrace new ideas with the hope of making positive changes in your dental practice.
Michael D. Goldstein, DDS, FAGD
Goldstein Management
