AME: Burnout in Dentistry

[00:00:01] This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:00:10] Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement.

[00:00:16] Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead Experience.

[00:00:28] Well, hello and welcome to another episode of The Alan Mead Experience.

[00:00:34] I'm your host Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, podcaster and tuba father, tuba player father, I should say.

[00:00:43] Having an interesting April-May because our life seems to revolve around all the different music groups that my oldest son, Sean, is in.

[00:00:52] He's a tuba player. We, on Thursday evening right now it's Sunday.

[00:00:59] It's the Sunday before I'm releasing this episode so as always I'm kind of doing this at the last second.

[00:01:04] I always think about what I'm going to talk about for a long period of time but I pretty much procrastinate until the Sunday before.

[00:01:11] It actually works out alright. I don't mind doing it on a deadline.

[00:01:14] I've had a lot of talk lately about that. That's probably worth a podcast in itself but Sean has between last Thursday.

[00:01:21] He was there a couple days ago and the end of his school year, I think he has five concerts or five performances.

[00:01:27] So the symphonic band at high school had a performance on Thursday where he's playing with a local concert band, the Midland Concert Band.

[00:01:39] He got a scholarship from them actually. It's really exciting.

[00:01:41] He has another local group called the Mid-Michigan Brass Band which is his kind of his favorite.

[00:01:49] He really likes the music there.

[00:01:51] And then he has to, he has to march in the Memorial Day Parade.

[00:01:55] Midland, my little town of Midland has a great Memorial Day Parade and they have a bunch of bands march and that's kind of fun.

[00:02:01] They've turned their uniforms in so he's already more excited about that because it doesn't have to wear like the hot stuffy uniform.

[00:02:06] And then he may well be playing at graduation as well because he's not a graduating senior.

[00:02:13] And a bunch of the graduating seniors are not going to be able to play for graduation because they'll be busy graduating so he's probably going to be roped into playing there.

[00:02:23] So that's a bunch of performances.

[00:02:25] So we kind of, our life sort of revolves around that and as recently as last weekend he had a big jazz band performance.

[00:02:30] So he just, it's the payoff of being a musician is that you got to perform a bunch at the end of the year.

[00:02:36] You're working towards something and it's always these performances.

[00:02:38] I love it by the way. I'm all in on it. I really enjoy it.

[00:02:41] So by no means am I complaining but it is, it's a whole thing.

[00:02:46] Anyhow so I'm excited about that.

[00:02:48] I have a really good topic that was brought up actually in the Very Dental Facebook group.

[00:02:54] And so before I even get to it, if you're not a member of the Very Dental Facebook group, you should go over there.

[00:03:00] It's, it won't take a lot of your time.

[00:03:02] It's not the most active Facebook group but I'm going to argue that the stuff we talk about there is good and authentic and honest.

[00:03:09] We don't, there's not a lot of BS like a lot of other dental Facebook groups.

[00:03:12] I try and keep it so basically it's people who have been on the podcast or people who listen to the podcast.

[00:03:19] So what'll have you go, you can look for Very Dental and it'll come up as the Very Dental Facebook group.

[00:03:25] I ask for one of five passwords to let you in to let you know because I don't give the passwords out anywhere but on the podcast.

[00:03:32] So one of them is let's see it is McQuethy, Lipscomb, Papa Randy, Hornbrook or Timmerman.

[00:03:39] Any of those five passwords will work.

[00:03:42] All five is great. Two fantastic. Just give me one of the passwords so I can let you in.

[00:03:47] And so we've had some decent conversations in the letter.

[00:03:51] It's not the most active group like it's not, you're not going to go there like some of the dental groups where it's like a kind,

[00:03:56] it's almost like a basically a small version of dental town.

[00:03:58] It's not that active but I'll try and start conversations quite often and we're usually talking about real stuff.

[00:04:04] Not like, you know, are you the greatest producing dentist in the world or do you have the best cosmetic dentistry in the world?

[00:04:10] And it's more like stuff like this.

[00:04:11] I got this from a dental student and I'll read it to you and then we'll discuss it a little bit.

[00:04:17] For my final in our program, I'm doing an academic inquiry presentation on high rates of burnout in dentistry.

[00:04:25] As a dentist have you ever felt burned out?

[00:04:28] If so, what did you do to overcome it?

[00:04:31] If you haven't, why do you think that is?

[00:04:33] And if you were able, if you were to give advice to a young student or dentist on how to manage a career in dentistry

[00:04:38] and avoid burnout, what would it be?

[00:04:41] So I threw that out to the Facebook group and actually I got a bunch of really good responses and I'm going to read and talk about some of them here.

[00:04:48] But first off, we actually this podcast over the years as the dental hacks and very dental podcasts, we've talked about burnout some quite a bit.

[00:04:55] And as far as avoiding burnout, I have to say there's a lot of people that believe that dentistry has more burnout than other professions.

[00:05:05] And I got to tell you, I don't know that I believe that.

[00:05:09] I think if you do something long enough, you can get burned out from it.

[00:05:15] I just believe that to be the case.

[00:05:17] I think that that is reality.

[00:05:20] I don't know that I have any evidence of that, but I just feel like on some level doing the same thing over and over again for a long enough time is going to cause burnout a little bit.

[00:05:30] It depends on what you consider burnout.

[00:05:32] And so I actually went to Google and use their lovely AI search engine.

[00:05:39] And it actually turned out really good.

[00:05:41] I'm going to just read their word for word that what the AI turned me on to here.

[00:05:46] Burnout is a syndrome that results from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

[00:05:53] It is characterized by three dimensions.

[00:05:55] Exhaustion, which is physical, cognitive and emotional fatigue that undermines people's ability to work effectively.

[00:06:02] Synthesis, feelings of negatism or cynicism related to one's job and inefficacy reduced professional efficacy.

[00:06:13] I actually think that's a pretty good definition.

[00:06:15] As far as I think, I don't know that there are any careers that don't offer some kind of burnout risk.

[00:06:26] And I also think that like, have I ever been burned out?

[00:06:29] Yeah, I felt burnout.

[00:06:31] You know, I felt really burnt out at times and then any given moment, I'm probably on some level or another.

[00:06:38] And it's just a matter of, because dentistry is hard.

[00:06:43] It's hard on your body.

[00:06:45] It's hard dealing with people all the time.

[00:06:48] It's hard dealing with stuff that doesn't go the way you wish that it would.

[00:06:53] It's just hard doing that.

[00:06:55] But here's the thing, I don't think that has, that's dentistry, but it's also everything else too.

[00:06:59] I've talked about this with friends a lot.

[00:07:01] I'm like, well, what would you do differently?

[00:07:03] And we always seem to end up going, well, that would suck too.

[00:07:04] You know, if you're having a hard go of it, that would suck too.

[00:07:09] So as far as the things that I have done personally to help or avoid burnout, a few things.

[00:07:19] So as you all probably know, or have heard I'm a recovering addict, it's been a long time since I've used or drank or anything like that.

[00:07:26] But I'm still me.

[00:07:28] I still have the mental problems that I had then.

[00:07:30] I just haven't poured a bunch of dope or alcohol on them.

[00:07:35] But managing emotions and life is no different now than it ever was.

[00:07:41] Like so on some level, the solutions I found when I was in treatment and early on in recovery was basically honesty, open-mindedness and willingness.

[00:07:55] So that's a big narcotics anonymous thing.

[00:07:58] And that's really helpful.

[00:08:00] I do think that, but the other thing is gratitude and gratitude, which is just appreciating what you have.

[00:08:06] I think sometimes it's so easy.

[00:08:10] Social media makes it very easy to see what everyone else has or what they're doing or whatever.

[00:08:15] And you see that what you have or what you're doing isn't good enough or isn't right or whatever.

[00:08:21] So I think that it helps to have a gratitude practice and to stay in a grateful mind.

[00:08:27] If you're in a grateful mindset, it is hard to get particularly burned out.

[00:08:34] Like it's not easy to stay in a grateful mindset all the time.

[00:08:38] That's the problem. It's easy to say that. It's much harder to do.

[00:08:42] One of the things I found is to maintain gratitude is you have to work on gratitude even when things are going well.

[00:08:50] It's really hard to fall back on gratitude when you're having a rough go of it if you're not used to thinking about gratitude anyhow.

[00:08:59] So that is a big deal.

[00:09:03] But I do think that burnout prevention for me, the very best thing for burnout prevention or there's maybe big burnout where you're like,

[00:09:15] I have to change everything in my life or small burnout going, man, that was a really long day.

[00:09:20] There's different variations and I have to tell you that exercise has been the best thing for me with regard to fixing small burnout.

[00:09:29] My wife will even say, you need to go ride your bike which is what I always basically...

[00:09:34] If I only had to pick just one thing that I could do my whole life and do all of the time, that would be it.

[00:09:40] Literally finding a mountain biking trail and riding my bike would be my choice of everything.

[00:09:46] And it just so happens that I get my heart rate up and get sweaty when I do that too.

[00:09:50] It's funny because it's not like I love exercise. I love riding my mountain bike and it just so happens that I get exercise when I do that.

[00:09:58] It's so dumb but it's true.

[00:10:00] So realistically, the more I can incorporate that into my daily thing, the less burned out, the less...

[00:10:07] I find myself having more resilience which is probably the opposite of burnout.

[00:10:13] The opposite of burnout to me would be resilience, just being able to roll with the punches and deal with what you've got to deal with.

[00:10:19] So exercise has been really good. Gratitude and exercise are the two things for me that I think...

[00:10:25] And I'm not going to tell you that those are foolproof.

[00:10:27] What I'll tell you is in the wintertime when it's dark all the time and there's slushy snow on the ground, it's really hard to ride your bike.

[00:10:32] I don't feel as excited to go ride as I do when it's a really nice day out and I got a great trail in front of me.

[00:10:38] So you kind of have to...

[00:10:41] Again, you've got to fall back on your habits and you've got to fall back on what you know will work when you're having a rough go as much as when you're having a good day.

[00:10:53] So probably that's the third thing I guess, developing really good habits.

[00:10:57] One really good habit that I developed after being in drug and alcohol treatment is I don't drink or use drugs.

[00:11:04] I don't use mood, altering chemicals and I have to say...

[00:11:07] I mean yes, am I super biased? Yeah, I'm like 22 years biased, very biased but I think falling back on alcohol as like a crutch is a really bad deal or any other drugs for that matter.

[00:11:22] But I think that's a problem.

[00:11:26] Again, it's been a long time since I've done that so hey maybe it's different now but I don't think that it is.

[00:11:31] I think if you can wave a magic wand and take that out of your life that will be harder for a while but you'll be glad it's gone if that's the thing.

[00:11:38] I'm not saying everyone is an addict either.

[00:11:40] I'm not saying everyone has the same kind of problems with what I did but I can tell you that alcohol...

[00:11:45] I mean alcohol can be a problem.

[00:11:48] So I don't think that's a good coping mechanism.

[00:11:51] I think exercise is a better coping mechanism or being grateful for things.

[00:11:56] Anyhow, that's sort of my take on it.

[00:11:58] Can you avoid burnout? I'm not sure that you can.

[00:12:01] I'm not sure that you really can.

[00:12:03] I think as a goal avoiding burnout, I don't know that you can really avoid it.

[00:12:08] I think if you were a lawyer or a physician or an accountant or you worked at 7-Eleven or anything.

[00:12:14] I think if you're there long enough and doing enough, I think you get burned out by it.

[00:12:18] I just think that that's reality.

[00:12:20] I think there's things you can do about it and maybe things on a day-to-day basis you can make that less of a big deal.

[00:12:27] But I do think that burnout is kind of...

[00:12:31] I don't know man, I think it's unavoidable.

[00:12:34] So okay my friend Deanna Snitzer came up with a list of 10 things that were pretty much awesome.

[00:12:39] And I'm going to read the whole list of 10 and then I'll talk about some more things that people talked about.

[00:12:45] So here's from Deanna.

[00:12:47] One, the faster you learn to stop caring about the teeth, more than the patient cares about them the better.

[00:12:53] So that is very true.

[00:12:55] I struggle with that all the time.

[00:12:57] But if you care more than the patient, you're setting yourself up for struggles.

[00:13:04] It's just simple as that.

[00:13:05] And I have to say there are a lot of times when I do care more than the patient.

[00:13:09] So that's...

[00:13:11] Or I find myself caring more than the patient and I have to step back from it.

[00:13:15] Two, find the type of work you like to do and do more of that.

[00:13:19] Again not necessarily easy but a terrific, a terrific suggestion.

[00:13:24] Three, don't tolerate people treating you like shit.

[00:13:27] Patients, staff or anyone really.

[00:13:30] No one is irreplaceable in your life but you, not a patient, not a hygienist, not anyone.

[00:13:33] Four, delegate.

[00:13:35] If there's something you don't like to do, allow someone else to take care of that for you.

[00:13:39] This may be professional or personal.

[00:13:41] Five, I mowed the...

[00:13:44] Just so you know, I mowed the lawn last night yesterday and it's like it takes like three hours to mow my lawn.

[00:13:49] And it was the first time of the season and it was fine.

[00:13:52] I should find a way to delegate that.

[00:13:55] I have two burly sons who could probably operate a lawn mower as well as anyone.

[00:13:58] And let's be honest, I should probably be delegating that.

[00:14:02] She's right about that.

[00:14:04] Five, you can't and shouldn't be everyone's dentist.

[00:14:09] And that's very true.

[00:14:11] Fire the people that get under your skin.

[00:14:13] And I don't know that you can fire everyone that gets under your skin but for people who really get under your skin, there's plenty of dentists in the world.

[00:14:20] You don't have to be their dentist.

[00:14:22] Six, if you ask 10 dentists the best way to do something, you'll get 11 answers.

[00:14:25] Find a way that works for you and do it that way.

[00:14:29] Man, is that good. That's all good stuff.

[00:14:31] I don't know where she came up with a list of 10 things like this.

[00:14:33] Seven, you'll never regret firing someone.

[00:14:35] You'll just regret not doing it sooner.

[00:14:37] This applies to basically anyone in your life.

[00:14:40] Again, very true.

[00:14:42] You ask any owner dentist about when they've had to fire people and they never say, oh no, no, I wish I hadn't.

[00:14:47] That never happens.

[00:14:49] Eight, take vacations.

[00:14:51] Believe it or not, people will survive if you're gone for a few days.

[00:14:53] It's true.

[00:14:55] Nine, dentist is what you do for a living.

[00:14:58] It isn't who you are.

[00:15:00] Spend equal amounts of energy developing your life outside your office as you spend inside of it.

[00:15:06] So basically, you're not just a dentist.

[00:15:10] Find a hobby, learn to cook, go on vacations, do stuff that your dentist is what you do.

[00:15:17] It isn't what you is.

[00:15:19] What you are, what you is.

[00:15:21] I like what you is.

[00:15:22] Don't forget that they're really just teeth.

[00:15:24] Pretty much no one is dying in our chair.

[00:15:26] That is a good thing.

[00:15:28] Being a dentist emotionally, we get wrapped up and stuff.

[00:15:32] Can you imagine being an oncologist where your everyday job is giving people the worst news that they've ever had in their life and they might die?

[00:15:40] I mean, I don't even know how they do that.

[00:15:43] When she says it's just teeth, she's right.

[00:15:47] She's right.

[00:15:49] Anyhow, that's so good.

[00:15:50] There's another one.

[00:15:52] This one is from Minda Gray from the Very Dental Facebook group.

[00:15:55] I would advise young students or dentists to focus on financial stability by getting and staying out of debt.

[00:16:02] Although that sounds easy, it is not.

[00:16:04] Debt makes you a prisoner.

[00:16:06] Many people believe doctors and dentists get out of school and the bucks come rolling in.

[00:16:09] And this is the time to live large because of the hard work and sacrifices during school.

[00:16:14] Take time off and focus on enjoying life but work on keeping on a budget.

[00:16:17] This will pay off many times over.

[00:16:20] When you need time off and do not feel trapped into knowing you cannot afford it.

[00:16:26] Here's the thing.

[00:16:28] That's real.

[00:16:30] It was 27 years ago that I was just out of school and I felt very entitled to spend because I hadn't been able to spend for a while.

[00:16:39] And I get that.

[00:16:41] The other thing is I think a lot of younger dentists have this comfort with debt because they're so deep in it already.

[00:16:45] It's just like what's a little more?

[00:16:48] And that is, I think that's a little dangerous.

[00:16:50] I have been limited in a lot of ways because I'm very averse to debt.

[00:16:55] I have a very low rate of debt compared to a lot of my dentist friends but I also make a lot less money than they do.

[00:17:02] I think she's right about the debt thing though.

[00:17:05] And I feel like everything's fine until interest rates start going up like they have and all this stuff.

[00:17:09] I just feel like if you can stay on a budget, I think that's a really wise thing.

[00:17:17] My friend Russell Schaefer, Burnout follows the Anna Karinina principle.

[00:17:22] I really like this one.

[00:17:24] All happy dentists are alike but all unhappy dentists are unhappy in their own ways.

[00:17:28] He goes on and it's definitely worth looking at.

[00:17:32] But I think one of the things is that social media is freaking poison, self-administered poison.

[00:17:36] I think we need to remember that.

[00:17:39] Lately I've actually gotten away from Instagram a little bit recently and it's been really good.

[00:17:43] Facebook is not hard for me to put away as much although I should spend more time in a group like ours because that's the people that I like to spend time with.

[00:17:53] But Instagram has a hold on me a little bit and I've been better about it lately.

[00:17:57] I think Russell's point is that burnout is going to happen to you one way or the other.

[00:18:05] It's just if you are looking for it and are ready for it and have some strategies, I think you're in a better position.

[00:18:10] This one was interesting.

[00:18:13] This one was a little harder for me to read.

[00:18:15] Jessica Starks says, I'm not burnt out.

[00:18:17] Comparing my practice to my burnt-out friends, I would say this is wild.

[00:18:21] This is interesting and that's why I'm going to read it.

[00:18:22] One, I work in emergencies every day, sometimes even walk-ins.

[00:18:26] My staff know I'm going to make time to find a spot to put them.

[00:18:31] With emergencies you get to solve someone's problem they already know they have.

[00:18:35] It's rewarding and the best practice builder.

[00:18:37] Okay that is, I hate walk-ins.

[00:18:41] We work in emergencies.

[00:18:43] I'm not going to say we pretty much always work in emergencies.

[00:18:45] But her point about you're working with someone who already knows that they have a problem, that is huge.

[00:18:55] Honestly, I read this.

[00:18:58] This was like a week ago.

[00:19:00] I read this and I thought to myself dentist as problem solver.

[00:19:03] That's a great position to be in because you know what?

[00:19:06] Most of the time we can help with a person's but when they come in pointing at a very specific problem,

[00:19:11] it hurts here or it's sharp here or it's broken here.

[00:19:13] So often we can just say, hey, here's the diagnosis.

[00:19:18] I know what your problem is and I can help you.

[00:19:20] That is very rewarding and frankly patients, you skip the step where you have to explain to the patient that they have a problem that they may or may not believe you about.

[00:19:28] I love that.

[00:19:30] I love that point.

[00:19:32] That is probably the best point that I've heard about that.

[00:19:35] It's really good.

[00:19:36] So Brady Smith has an angle that he takes and I know this is his angle and I'm going to read it anyhow.

[00:19:45] Brady, love you.

[00:19:47] I'm not sure that I agree with you completely but I love it.

[00:19:49] My two cents, find work to do for people for free that changes their life.

[00:19:52] This has helped me to find a purpose.

[00:19:54] Money isn't a good purpose.

[00:19:56] Service to others is.

[00:19:58] That's a good point.

[00:20:00] I could win the lottery tomorrow and I'd still work two days a week as a chair side dentist.

[00:20:03] Don't take advice from any dentist that aren't doing chair side dentistry.

[00:20:06] I wouldn't live with that.

[00:20:08] If I won the lottery, I probably would not work two days as a chair side dentist.

[00:20:12] I'm just going to put it out there.

[00:20:14] I would probably do other things.

[00:20:16] If I didn't have to work, I would probably find someone to buy my practice at a steep discount because I trusted my patients with them and I would walk away.

[00:20:25] I have no problem saying that.

[00:20:27] Am I burnt out?

[00:20:29] I don't know but I'm old and you know I got stuff I could be doing if I won the lottery.

[00:20:32] Just saying.

[00:20:33] I love the way that I feel about my dentist.

[00:20:35] Jason Lucktefeld said something that I really appreciated because I think he is sort of, he sort of helped me figure out that burnout is sort of a popular thing to talk about but the reality is I think it's everywhere.

[00:20:46] So Jason Lucktefeld says,

[00:20:48] Is he, she talking about the clinical profession or the clinical definition of burnout?

[00:20:53] Is that actually higher in dentistry than any other profession?

[00:20:56] I don't know.

[00:20:58] I don't think that it necessarily is.

[00:21:00] Have I ever felt burned out perhaps?

[00:21:01] I think it's a lot of frustration at times that lasted for several months but it's kind of a roller coaster.

[00:21:05] You have ups and downs.

[00:21:07] I think one answer is to tune into your core values and focus on how you work within those every day.

[00:21:11] Oftentimes people feel trapped because of debt, team challenges, patients saying no among other things.

[00:21:17] Learning to handle all these things takes time.

[00:21:19] He gives a selfish plug.

[00:21:21] I'm going to tell you to go back and check out his selfish plug in the very dental podcast Facebook group.

[00:21:26] One is Trey Hanna says,

[00:21:32] Currently feeling it.

[00:21:34] I also have three kids, five, three and two and I am in solo practice.

[00:21:37] Days I wonder why I did this to myself.

[00:21:40] Three kids of those ages, if you had no job, I wouldn't feel burnt out.

[00:21:45] I'm sorry, Trey.

[00:21:47] It's going to get better.

[00:21:49] Trust me, it really does.

[00:21:51] I had two kids and felt like it was all we could do to keep the place from burning down and still do some days.

[00:21:54] So that's real.

[00:21:57] So there are some takes on burnout.

[00:22:00] I think that burnout can actually be a lot of different things to be honest.

[00:22:07] I think that it's real and I think that dentists deal with it.

[00:22:10] We talk about it a lot.

[00:22:12] I think a lot of people say, oh, we don't talk about burnout enough.

[00:22:15] I think we do.

[00:22:17] I think talking about burnout is not as good as finding strategies to deal with burnout.

[00:22:24] I think we do better with burnout because I think, I hate to say it, I think it's probably part of the profession and maybe part of any profession on some level.

[00:22:33] I think maybe it's the human condition a little bit.

[00:22:37] If you do anything repetitively long enough, I think you might get burned out on it.

[00:22:40] And so you need to find, you know, the other thing that people have said, I've heard is, you know, take a vacation and that's always a good thing.

[00:22:47] I think taking a break from it, after I've been off for a week, we went on spring break, you know, a couple of months and a half ago.

[00:22:54] And dentistry feels really weird and different when you haven't been doing it for a week and a half.

[00:22:58] I mean, shoot, I was in treatment for four and a half months.

[00:23:01] Can you imagine what it felt like?

[00:23:03] You know, I was off for four and a half months and came back and it was, it felt like a brand new thing again.

[00:23:08] So I do think that taking a little time away from it or doing a little less if you can is helpful.

[00:23:15] I really believe that and having, you know, having a, but understand even if you spend a week in a tropical island and think that this is the way to live.

[00:23:24] I'm not saying that a person couldn't get used to living on a tropical island, but I think everything has its own form of burnout of some sort.

[00:23:33] After you would get tired of that too, I'm just saying.

[00:23:36] So taking a break is really good and having daily things for yourself, exercise or, you know, or a mindfulness practice or taking a walk or, you know,

[00:23:54] or whatever, having, you know, playing video games or whatever, having something sometime for yourself every day is really important.

[00:24:00] I think that will help a lot and I think that can grind you.

[00:24:02] The other thing is, I gotta say this is the last thing and I'm guilty of this talking about it, talking about it so much.

[00:24:09] I think that's not so great.

[00:24:11] Like on some level, I hate to say this and it isn't like, I'm not necessarily saying talk therapy or talk, but, but a lot of times talking about it over and over again kind of reinforces it in your brain

[00:24:24] and I'm really burned out and stuff like that.

[00:24:26] I think for me, when I do that, I kind of roll around at it and then I stay in it longer than I necessarily have to.

[00:24:33] Building resilience where you can just shake stuff off.

[00:24:36] That's where it's at.

[00:24:38] And I gotta tell you, I've been better and worse about that in my life.

[00:24:40] None of this stuff is something that you do once and you fix.

[00:24:43] You're going to run into this struggle all the time.

[00:24:46] I will say also people say take some continuing education and try something new and different if you want to.

[00:24:50] And also understand that even if you try something new and different in CE and find this not a good fit, that's okay too.

[00:24:55] It's not a waste.

[00:24:57] It's always good to know more stuff.

[00:24:59] I took an orthodontics continuum back in 2005 and never did an orthodontics case and I realized it helped me be a better referral to my orthodontists.

[00:25:07] And it, you know, it helped me look at, you know, the head and face and teeth a little bit differently.

[00:25:13] It was great.

[00:25:15] I think I'm a better refer because of it, but it was not a waste.

[00:25:17] So that kind of thing don't ever feel bad about taking CE that you don't necessarily use.

[00:25:22] If, if you take CE and find out that you don't want to do it, that's still valuable.

[00:25:27] That's still valuable information.

[00:25:29] So listen, I appreciate you guys listening.

[00:25:31] I think this is an interesting topic and I hope it was helpful for our dental student.

[00:25:34] I hope it was helpful for you too.

[00:25:36] I appreciate you listening to the podcast.

[00:25:38] If you would do me two favors.

[00:25:40] I don't ask this that often, but it actually supposedly helps.

[00:25:42] If you would go to whatever podcast app that you're using to listen to this, if you would rate and review five star reviews are awesome.

[00:25:52] And just let just a little note saying why you like the show or whatever.

[00:25:56] And then tell a friend about the podcast, tell them to try it out, see what they think.

[00:26:01] That would be fantastic.

[00:26:03] I'd really appreciate it.

[00:26:05] I appreciate you guys.

[00:26:07] Glad we have the Facebook group to contact and I'm glad you guys keep listening.

[00:26:09] And I thank you and we'll catch you next episode.

[00:26:12] Thank you.