Newbie Dentist

“Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness”

Malcolm Gladwell

I had a few topics in mind when I considered what I should use for my first blog post. Ultimately, I decided to use the “10K hours rule” because I think it accurately summed up what we/dentists do in dentistry. It also serves as a good reference point and introduction for this website and future blog posts. Regardless of whether you agree it is a rule or not (in fact, if you look it up on Google, you will find many posts already “disproved” it or discussed many ways on how to “shorten” the hours), there is no dispute about becoming great in dentistry requiring sound medical and dental knowledge, as well as a lot of practising to improve manual dexterity and efficiency.

I remember when I was in dental school, completing the clinical requirements was one of our biggest worries. I still recall it included twenty direct restorations, three indirect restorations, two cases of dentures, two periodontal disease cases, ten root canal treatments with a minimum of one molar case, and at least two cases per session during the weekly extraction clinics. If I didn’t meet the requirements, I would have to stay back in the university clinic for however long until it was finished, even after I had passed all the written examinations. So, sharing the cases/patients among different students was a common practice. In fact, the faculty employed two coordinators to help the students fulfil the clinical requirements and arrange the patients for us.

Unfortunately, for multiple reasons, universities had less emphasis on completing clinical requirements in recent years. From my observations and interviews with newbie dentists in my clinic, many have not completed an indirect restoration or molar root canal case before graduation. As a result, and many experienced dentists would agree with me, it has created quite an interesting group of newbie dentists in the past few years.

The newbie dentists in my clinic are all excellent in terms of theoretical knowledge, thanks to easier online access to literature. They can often formulate a very good treatment plan for the patient. However, many of them have difficulty explaining (communication is another big topic for another day) and executing the treatment. I am not saying they can’t place a filling or extract the tooth (well, probably a bit more often that they can’t than they can from my observation), but the amount of time spent on a procedure, materials used, and the discomfort caused on the patients (the most critical issue in my opinion), shall I say, quite spectacular. A class II MO restoration on the mandibular first molar often ends up with the bracket table looking like a war zone, and the faces of the newbie dentist, dental assistant, and patients look like they have just finished a body pump session in the gym.

Another interesting observation I noticed is the increased requests not to do hygiene (scale and clean) and simple fillings appointments from the newbie dentists during the interview. They wanted to start and expected to be mentored for complex treatment procedures such as the surgical third molar extraction, implants and full-mouth rehabilitation treatment ASAP. I was once told by a newbie dentist that he expected to perform all these procedures after six months of joining the clinic. I was told they learned the theories in dental school but never performed one, so they felt they needed to catch up.

I am not saying these to criticise the newbie dentists or the university. As mentioned, many factors have reduced the availability of clinical training hours. The time that used to be available for me to seek advice from my clinical tutors on modifying my war-zone-like bracket table became a luxury event for newbie dentists. The communication training on explaining and organising the treatment plan to patients with different dental students is no longer needed. Let’s agree that the 10k hours rule is true for becoming great in each procedure, regardless of whether it is a hygiene procedure or surgical third molar extraction. Then, the accumulated hours for newbie dentists nowadays are certainly less than when I was a newbie dentist. So, what should they do?

Well, let me quote a common saying from the personal development world: the mindset/attitude of the individuals determines their results. So, what should be the mindset/attitude for the newbie dentist? Let me quote another phrase from my faculty dean at the time, Prof. Iven Klineberg, who spoke to us in our final lecture before graduation. He said, “The dental degree you will all have is simply a licence to learn to become a dentist.” I think there is a lot of wisdom in his words.

Like many other discussions, we always use driving as an example. Getting a dental degree is like passing your driving test. Now that you have obtained your “P-plate”, you are a “provisional” driver. There is still much learning to do to become a great driver. You have learned how to accelerate, brake, and turn corners in a car on the street (general dentistry), but you don’t need to do it at 140 km/hr on a race track (complex treatment) to prove you can drive. You didn’t miss out or need to catch up on anything (although my car-racing-fan colleagues will disagree). Of course, you can pursue it if that is what you want to do, but keep in mind that you’ll still need 10K hours. Are you sure and ready for it now?

So, my first advice for newbie dentists is to be open-minded and coachable. I assure you that spending the 10K hours on general dentistry is as glamorous and rewarding as racing on the race track. This is what this website is about, and I promised I’d share it with you.