AME: Talking Myself Off the Ledge

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[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00] This is a production of the Very Dental Podcast Network. Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment in his basement. 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.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_01] Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead Experience. I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, podcaster, and a murder bot. I'm actually not a murder bot, but I am running through what I think is the best science fiction series of all time, which is entitled The Murder Bot Diaries. It's an author by the name of Martha Wells, and I have probably listened to these books.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01] I'll bet this is my fifth time through them, something like that. I've already mowed through the first two in this weekend, and they're short. They're real short. They're super good. Tons of action, and you can't help but love the character. So I highly recommend. I don't even know why that came to mind, except it's all I've been listening to this weekend, so it's fantastic. So I have a really interesting topic to talk to you about. A couple weeks ago, I put up a post in the Very Dental podcast Facebook group.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01] And so if you're not a member, you should become a member. Go on Facebook. Just look up Very Dental. And then when you click on it and request an invite, you've got to give me one of five passwords, names. You've got Papa Randy, McQuethy, Lipscomb, Hornbrook, or Timmerman. Any of those five will get you in. I'm amazed that I can remember all of those, but I do. Not in the same order necessarily. I like to keep it interesting, but there you go. Give me one of those names, and we'll get you in. It's a great group.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01] A lot of good discussion. It's not as busy as some dental groups. It's also – it's not a garbage fire like most dental groups. It's very – I'm the only administrator. So if there's something there that I don't like, I just delete it. There's no – it is a – it's mostly libertarian, but it's a little bit of a dictatorship too because if anything is in there that is unintentionally there, I delete it. But I don't have to do that very much because it's all good people.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_01] And basically, I only put the passwords out on the podcast. So the only people in there are other people listening to the podcast. So there you go. Very Dental Facebook group. Go join that. So I put this up a couple weeks ago. There's a backstory, and I'll get to the backstory. But I put this up. It says – I'm going to just read it. I'm going to suggest that every dentist goes through periods where they feel like a bad clinician. For me, it's typically a few unfortunate poor outcomes. Unable to find a canal.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_01] Struggling with a root tip or the classic. It didn't hurt until you worked on it. That's like – that one just crushes my soul every time. I'm pretty good at shirking off one or maybe two of these, but several in a short time can really get me down about myself. One, does this happen to you? If it doesn't, I want to know your secret. Two, what helps you pull out of it? I have some thoughts, but I'm curious to know what helps you. FYI, I'm going to record a podcast about this, and now I am recording that podcast.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_01] So if you have any thoughts or even just want to be on to talk about it, let me know. So no one reached out to want to talk about it, but I did get a lot of good comments. So the reaction, first reaction from Dr. Russell Schaefer, who's been on the show before and has his own podcast called Totally Oral, which you should go and download right now. I would suggest that if it doesn't happen to you and you instead think you are amazing, that you might be a narcissist and unwilling to recognize your own mistakes. That's a strong statement. It's probably true.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_01] I worry less about those people because I think most regular dentists feel this on a regular basis. If you really don't feel it, you probably have – well, on some level, I maybe am jealous of your self-confidence because I just – I don't know. I'm not sure I buy that people do that.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01] Dr. Brett Kessler, who's going to be on the show in the next couple weeks, the incoming ADA president and longtime friend of mine, we are imperfect beings working in a technically demanding profession with precision expectations not only from ourselves but our patients and reimbursement models. And we do this in a small dark hole with all sorts of obstacles, tongue, cheek, saliva, upside down and backwards that raise the level of difficulty of the task at hand, which also is very hard on our bodies and our support team's bodies.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_01] This causes many of us to perform while in pain with the same highest expectations, plus the stress of our patients, staff, overhead equipment, facility, family, social stresses, financial, et cetera. Other than that, what's the problem? Please give yourself some grace to be human. We are perfectly imperfect. It's surprising that less than perfect outcomes aren't more than norm. That is a very good point. I was talking to my lab technician last week, and he has a mill. It's a new mill.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01] He got it just like two or three months ago, so he's actually able to mill his own stuff, which has been a long time in coming. And the mill went down. Like, it wasn't working. And the poor guy, I mean, like two months in and his mill goes down. And, you know, the technical support was essentially no help whatsoever. He ended up needing, it was the computer. He got another computer, and it is milling now. But, like, when you have a workflow set up in one way, and then it breaks down and you have to switch up, that is a wildly stressful thing.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_01] And we were laughing a little bit about, you know, he doesn't have his lab. He does so much milled. He doesn't have a casting arm. And if he has to do any casting, he has to send that out, too, which I think is probably pretty typical. And then I flashed back to dental school. And I graduated from the University of Minnesota, a very proud gold casting school, from the mid-'90s. I graduated in 1997.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_01] We had to cast our own gold that was actually going to go in people's mouths. And I remember the first thing we learned in Fixed Pross, the third quarter of first year all through second year of Fixed Pross, was basically the process of preparing a crown, impressing a crown, pouring the model, you know, all the stuff, the fixed stuff that goes from stone to wax to investment to, you know, burnout to casting to finishing.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01] So, like, every one of those steps was a step that could go wrong and cause distortion and problems. So, like, what I learned as a second-year student is how in the world does any of this stuff ever work? How does it ever work? And that's kind of what Brett said. He's like, it's surprising that less-than-perfect outcomes aren't more the norm. And I'm like, yeah, how does it ever work? And it's amazing, actually, because it really mostly works quite predictably most of the time now.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01] So it is kind of amazing when you think about that. So Zach Miners of the Very Clinical Podcast writes something very important, and I want you all to listen to this. Or you see a variety of failures on recalls and begin to wonder whether dentistry works at all. And it begins to affect the way you treatment plan, because in the back of your head, that little voice is saying, that's not going to work. And then your schedule goes to shit, because you're recommending less, because you don't want to see another failure.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01] And then you begin to feel like a failure in business and dentistry. Vicious cycle. Just me? No, Zach, it's not just you, because I do the same thing. It takes a lot of smooth weeks in seeing successes in recall to get me out of this funk sometimes. And actually, successes in recall, that's a great point. It's a really good point. Just remember, when you're feeling really bad, you have a really bad day, it is important to look at some recalls. Because you know what? Most of the stuff you've done is pretty great. You don't give yourself that credit when you see the failure stuff.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_01] And I mean, I get it. And actually, Zach and Brad Madison have a big back and forth about this. And it's worth reading. I'm not going to read the whole thing, because it's long. But it's so good. So you should go to the Very Dental Facebook page and read their back and forth, because it's really good. Kelsey Esposito says, I've just learned that the worst thing you can do is to avoid or ignore the situation. Always best to talk it through and problem solve in person for the best outcome. Never on the phone or email.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_01] I always feel better after talking about it and think the patient does, too. Usually we come to some plan or compromise. That's good advice. I think sometimes the problem is you're not sure. Particularly for the bad outcome. Okay, if you know that it's a bad outcome when it happened, like at the time that it happened, yes, 100%. You need to be in person, in their phase, explaining. And I'm trying to think, like, bad outcome.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_01] A crown where you missed a margin or an open margin that you're going to have to send back to the lab. That's one. Most patients understand if you're doing it because you want to have the best outcome, they're cool with it. Jeez, you missed a root tip in an extraction and you can't get it out. Perfed and endo. Can't find a canal. Something like that. These are all things you can talk about at the time. Sometimes the bad outcome is pain or sensitivity that you didn't know how it was going to work or not.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_01] Sometimes it's something removable where they have a sore spot. Bottom line, talking to the patients in person is the best thing. Next best thing is a phone call when they're not expecting a phone call. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if a phone call when they're not expecting a phone call is even better. Because you have the surprise like, oh my gosh, the dentist really cares about me. Because it's true, you do care and it's bugging you. And nine times out of ten, that is usually a really good interaction. So I'm with you on that though, Kelsey.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_01] I think that's a good thought. Brad Keener. This is so good. This is so good. There are days when the handpiece thinks I'm Frank Spear. And then there are days when it thinks my name is something like, I don't know, Kenny. Brad Keener, I'm with you. I'm with you. Clara Dutton Griffey says, thank you for bringing this up. It definitely does happen. I remember listening to the Dental Hacks podcast in dental school. And you once said something about having one of those days or maybe periods of time where everything I touch turns to shit.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_01] But I think I probably have said that in multiple times on a podcast to be perfectly honest. And that saying stuck with me and has come to mind here and there over the past few years. I've had a few of those days recently and it really made me hate going to work. No advice, but I would love to hear others experience with this. That is very true.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_01] And I got a great story that I'm going to tell you once I'm done reading these things because it also literally those problems can be solved instantaneously because it's typically you beating up on yourself. Patients can be mad and patients cannot be mad. That almost – you almost have no control over that. It's almost separate from the outcome being bad, right?

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_01] Like because I have patients that like me enough that they're going to – they will cut me the slack even if I don't deserve it. And I have patients that will cut me no slack even if everything goes great. You know, I've got both ends of that thing. So that's – you almost don't have control over that except for the fact that you have control over how good of a relationship you have on someone before treating them.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_01] And if you are skeptical – this is – I mean, I've said this a million times, but if you're concerned about the patient not being in your corner, don't treat them. The worst time to find that out is after they're in a temporary or you've prepped a tooth or you've numbed them up or whatever. Yeah, it's just – I mean, it happens. But Rob Apple says, I find the poor outcomes always happen on patients with a mouthful of questionable dentistry. And, of course, they are also the loudest complainers. Seems like a common denominator.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_01] Whenever I have a poor outcome on a great patient, it seems easier to manage because they appreciate the effort to make it right, which makes me feel less shitty. That is 100%. 100%. Anticipating potential complications and preparing patients ahead of time makes it feel like less of an excuse after the fact. Not always possible, though. This is where informed consent – and I've talked about this a million times – is really important. And, frankly, informed consent is probably always worth it.

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_01] But, and a lot of times it's on the procedures where I think it's going to be a cakewalk where I wish I had talked about complications a little more ahead of time. It's very, very good stuff. Very good stuff. Aaron Elliott. That Aaron Elliott. Dr. Aaron Elliott. I focus on the 99% that need to go well. Learn from what I can do better. Have people like Dr. Kelly Harness speak words of encouragement. And remember that at least it's not brain surgery. I also know my abilities.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_01] While I challenge myself so I keep growing, I also absolutely know what I don't enjoy or I'm not good at and refer to the other docs in my office that enjoy it. And then – so her partner, Kelly, actually joined the Very Dental Facebook group so she could reply, which is so cool. I freaking love that. Let me find – This is a reason I could never practice alone. I need Dr. Aaron Elliott to talk me off the ledge every now and again. If she can handle being married to her husband, Tom, I should be able to handle dentistry.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_01] The story is that there are times when I think – there are times when I love working alone and not having other dentists. But there's a lot of times where I think it would be pretty fun to work with someone that you liked and trusted and that you could lean on. Because I do lean on other dentists when I have bad stuff, whether it's in Facebook groups or it's in group chats or if it's calling a friend or something like that. If you had someone in the office all the time, that would be so good.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I – so Kelly and Aaron, I'm a little jealous that you have each other on a daily basis like that. You already know Crazy Dental has practically unbeatable prices on everyday dental supplies. But how do we make that deal even sweeter? Free shipping. Jump over to crazydentalprices.com, fill your cart, and enter promo code VERYSHIP, all one word, at checkout. That's VERYSHIP, all one word, to wipe out shipping costs on every single order.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_01] Even better, using that code directly supports the Very Dental Podcast Network. Stock up, pocket the savings, get free delivery, and help back the show. Use VERYSHIP, all one word, today. And I will say that my dad practiced – it was really cool. My dad's office was in a building with another dentist's office, and they shared a lab. Like the lab actually connected the two offices, right? So they would – when they had time – when I have time between patients or waiting for somebody to get numb,

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_01] I'll go and jump on social media and melt my brain. When they had time between patients, they would go to the lab, and half the time, the other guy was there, and they could talk, or they could joke, or they could complain about patients or whatever. And I'm very jealous. They didn't – their practice wasn't – it wasn't the same practice, but it was the same building, and they shared the lab. So it was a really cool setup. I got to say that that's – having someone to lean on is a big deal.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01] So Dr. Gary Holtzclaw says, yes, happens around once a year where I feel like nothing will go right for a couple days to a week or so. During that time, I'm unable to see what goes right. That is so true. So true. I'll also say it is often you're seeing that one to two patients, a ton of number – I'll also say it often is that you're seeing that one or two patients a ton, so the number seems higher because here she or he is again, which makes sense because a lot of times when you're dealing with complications, you're seeing them a lot.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01] The partial that is never going to be right or the crown that's sensitive or whatever. I'm going to tell you this right now. Lately, the sensitive crown, I have solved this with Ivo Klaher's bonding agent. Okay, hang on. It's the VivaPen Adhese Universal. Okay. So basically, if I have a sensitive tooth that has the slightest bit of exposed dentin, I'm going to just literally – I don't even have to numb up. I don't have to do anything. Just dry it. Paint this stuff on because it's a self-etcher.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01] You can total etch, but it's a self-etcher. I'm going to put two layers on, dry that, and hit it with the light. And I'm going to tell you that 80% of the time, the patient – literally, you can blow air on it, water on it right there and then, and it's not sensitive anymore. When it's dental hypersensitivity, I swear to God, this stuff is amazing. I like Ivoclar stuff, but I particularly like this Adhese Universal pen because, I mean, I have two different bonding agents I use. One of them is alcohol-based, and this one is acetone-based. And I like it.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01] I like having one of each. But I will tell you that this stuff works for desensitization better than anything I've ever used before. That is a little clinical tip that I wasn't expecting to give, but yet here we are. Here we are. That's what we do in this podcast. We're a value podcast. Sarah Meyer says, I've been trying to help my perfectionist eight-year-old by telling him a mistake I make every day while the family goes around the table. I never have to think very hard about it. My mistakes loom large in my brain on the plus side. I do think it's helping him a little bit.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_01] So sharing the load is definitely helpful on those sorts of things. There's no doubt about it. Natalie Ballas says, wait, you only go through periods? I get it. That's funny. Sometimes that's how it feels. There it is. Paul Farrelli. Man, Paul, your name is still hard for me to say, even though I've talked to you in person lots of times. Your last name is hard to say.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01] It used to happen a lot more when I was starting out, mostly when I took more ownership of the initial situation or the problem than the patient did. That would lead me to feeling like crap and things would spiral in these situations somehow just always got bunched together. I would be on a streak of feeling fine, then all of a sudden I'd feel like everything I did was crap. I talked to Dr. Michael Melkers, who's also going to be on the show soon, about it when I was in a really bad place and just felt like I was the worst dentist and everything I was doing was terrible.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_01] He just looked at me and said, you think you're the only one? That made me feel much better knowing I wasn't the only one who felt that way at times. And if he felt that way too, I knew it was eventually going to be okay. The negative wave would pass. All very true. Taking ownership of the problem. I've been doing this since 1997. Let's do the math. That's 27 years. 27 years worth of this. And I still struggle with taking ownership of the patient's problem.

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_01] I would like to have the emotional range of Spock from Star Trek when it comes to this stuff. I would love to be able to look directly at the patient's problem, tell them exactly what it is, and then just walk away from it and say, I don't care if you do anything about it. I told you about it. If you want to do something about it, we can. I wish I could do that, but a lot of times I don't. And worse than that, some of these patients I've literally known for 27 years since I've been practicing, and I feel like they're more like family than patients, and I just feel

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01] horrible because a lot of them are getting older and are breaking down. It's terrible. So all this stuff was a great conversation. There's a lot more in this thread that I haven't talked about. So you need to go to the Very Dental Facebook group and read all of it because it's going to make you feel better. I have a story that goes along with this. This is the reason that I started this thing. But again, if you haven't joined the Very Dental Facebook group, you got to go to Very Dental Facebook group, request an invite, give me one of five passwords. Let's see if I can remember them. Timmerman, Hornbrook, McQuethy, Lipscomb, Papa Randy.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01] Those five, one of those five, all those five, some of those five, whatever you want to do, we'll get you in. You can read this fantastic thread that's worth reading. I gave you the highlights, but there's a lot more there. It's like a textbook in dealing with this kind of mental space. Let me tell you a little bit about what inspired me to start this post in the first place. Relatively new patient, painfully nice guy, painfully nice guy. Honestly, he was kind of a mess. Interestingly, he was willing to do stuff, though. He was willing to do work.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_01] He had one of those teeth that had been restored with fillings a bunch of times, and he had recurrent decay. It was on the root surface. I should have known it was going to be a problem child. Did the restoration, crossed our fingers, and he called having pain. He called having quite a bit of pain. And so I took a look at him and decided that we could do the endo. We could do a root canal. The tooth was, if it wasn't abscessed, it was getting there. And I wanted, he was dying.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_01] And so I got him in on an emergency basis, and I got him numbed up. But I mean, I had actually written him. He actually called. Oh, man. I think he called on the weekend. He had his daughter call on the weekend saying he was dying. And he knew that I couldn't call, I could only call in Tylenol 3 for pain. He knew that that should have been a red flag. We'll come back to that. This is a guy who continued to have pain no matter what I did. I did bring him in. I said I would try and open the tooth.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01] The tooth was pretty, I could see a canal on the distal as a lower second molar. I could see a canal on the distal. I thought I could see the mesial canals, but they were pretty small. I had him in the chair for like an hour and 20 minutes. And I got into the distal canal pretty well. And I got into one canal on the mesial. But interestingly, I couldn't get anything bigger than a 10 file down that canal. It was a spindly little canal. I'm like, man, that is a really, it's really weird considering, I mean, the distal was pretty decent sized.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01] And I felt like I was getting close to perforating. I couldn't find the two mesial canals. I found one. And what I suspect when I put some calcium hydroxide in it, it looked to me like I may have found the middle mesial, which is a real accomplishment, except I couldn't find any other canals. So I got some calcium hydroxide in there. And I said, you know, I got to send you to an endodontist. I am worried this tooth is going to give us a hard time. I looked at the x-ray.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_01] In that middle mesial canal, I blew out some calcium hydroxide and it came out mid-root. I'm like, oh man, did I perf this thing? And so in my mind, I'm thinking, I haven't done a good job here. I should have, I should have punted this before I messed it up. I was real, really worried that I had perforated the tooth, except I sent it to several friends like, no, that's a canal as two canal shaped. I don't know what it, so I sent him to the endodontist and that, but in the meantime, so I had calcium hydroxide that had actually kind of, it was in the PDL space.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_01] So you knew he's going to be hurting. Um, so he hit me for, I sent him home with, with, uh, like Norco, like a generic Norco hydrocodone, but I never, I never write many. I wrote like eight or something like that. Well, he calls in later. I, this is all in retrospect. I wasn't, you know, I'm, I'm elbow deep and other stuff dealing with it. So I wasn't super worried about it, but I have never written for, uh, Percocet. I've never written for oxycodone in my entire career.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_01] I am, I'm a recovering drug addict and I know that's the good stuff. I never wrote for that stuff. Uh, for the longest time, my DEA, I didn't, I, I didn't even allow myself to write class two. Uh, I only could do, I just cause I just wanted limited. So this guy talks me into a Percocet script because I, and I felt terrible because he was hurting so bad. And I knew that this, the, the, this endo had gone poorly. I hadn't, you know, I, and of course he couldn't get into the specialist for a month or a month and a half and I was like, Oh God. So I'm feeling bad.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_01] I'm medicating him and all this stuff. So finally last week, Oh, this is so good. This is so rich. Last week I get into the office and there had been a message left from the endodontist's office that, that they had gotten this patient in early for me in the, in the answering machine. Can you give us a call when you, when you get this and you're just like, Oh no, I was right. I perfed it. I screwed the tooth up, but Oh, I'm going to hear all about this.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_01] I was so the whole time I'd felt like I'd done such a horrible job. And, and, and then, and then on top of that, Oh, it gets so much better. The patient had, had called and left a message canceling their further appointments with my office. So, I mean, I don't know if you hear this and you're like, Oh man, I felt like, I mean, I just had fear in my heart. I'm like, Oh, I've screwed this up so badly.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_01] I just, just the worst, you know, here I'm trying to do this guy a favor and I mess everything up. And, and so I'm thinking that the endodontist is going to scold me for doing such a terrible job. And, and the patient was mad and he was, I'm, I'm, you know, lawsuit incoming, all this stuff on, and I'm, and then, so my office manager calls the endodontist's office says, yeah. Uh, so your patient came in here and before he even sat down in the waiting room, he came in and, and he had a couple prescriptions.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_01] He said, I'm going to need to have this filled before, before he ever sat down before he did anything, you know? Uh, and, and she said, well, we, we really need to see the tooth before we can even evaluate any of that. And, and, uh, he got so mad that, that they didn't tell him that, uh, that they would refill his prescriptions that, uh, he walked out, he walked out. He was never seen by the endodontist after all that.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01] So, so I spent a solid two hours that morning thinking I was the worst dentist on the face of the earth. And I had done a terrible job on this patient and the endodontist was going to scold me when in reality is my patient, uh, you know, I know drug seekers well, cause I have that, I have that in my past literally as a recovering addict. And this guy snowed me. I never, I, I didn't put two and two together because I thought I had done, done him so wrong with this tooth.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01] Um, so yeah, he canceled all his appointments on me after he went into the endodontist office and, uh, tried to shake them down for prescriptions before they ever saw him. So he never actually saw the endodontist and he's kind of canceled himself from my office. So I figure, listen, I, if he needs to be seen again, I will happily see him again. I have a lot more data now that I used to. So I don't, uh, I'm pretty sure that specialist won't see him again. And I could find him another specialist if he wants to be treated.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01] But my guess is I won't ever hear from him again, which sucks because he's got calcium hydroxide, which is fine for the short haul. But if that tooth, if he's going to finish that endo, it needs to be finished or it's going to blow up on him. And I just feel bad for him and, but I'm not going to write him any more scripts. Let's just say that much. So yeah, I got suckered people. I got suckered. Uh, yes, the outcome wasn't good, but it was a case selection problem more than anything else. This was a tougher tooth than I should have been trying to do.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_01] And I was trying to do him a favor because he kept telling me about how horrible the pain was on this tooth after I had done a restoration on it. That was pretty straightforward. What is the truth? I don't even know, but I have let myself off the hook because I, instead of being yelled at by the endodontist and what a terrible job I did. And that was literally when I, when I first opened this tooth up and tried to get to it, that's when I posted this two weeks ago. It was only a week and a half later that I realized that he got into the endodontist office

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01] and never even saw the endodontist. So understand that stuff can happen. Yes, you can have poor outcomes. You can, you can try to make them better. You can try to talk to the patient. You can try to get their expectations down. You can do really good informed consent, all this stuff, but it can still happen to us. So your best bet is to understand, is give yourself a break that, you know, as long as you did your best, as long as you weren't trying to hurt someone and it happens to all of us.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_01] It happens to all of us and, and it sucks for all of us. And what you really need is you need to have someone you can trust that you can talk to, to kind of talk you off the ledge. Like I said, Aaron and Kelly, I'm very jealous of you because you have each other. To talk you off the ledge in these situations. So maybe we need to have a, a private group in the very dental Facebook group, the talk off the ledge group. It could be anonymous for Cranel. I love that. But understand that it comes with the territory.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01] If you are a regular clinician doing their best, you are going to have some bad beats that make you feel like you're terrible. You're not terrible. It happens to all of us. You're doing your best. And, and there's lots of people out there that understand what you're going through. So I hope, I hope this has been helpful. The original thread was very helpful for me. And if you are not a member of the very dental Facebook group, you need to go in there and read this thread because it is freaking amazing. It's really, and it's still going. There's still people adding stuff. It's really good.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_01] But also I'm really glad that I could tell the entire story and feel a little bit better about it because it was bad. And then it got really bad in like in a moment after hearing about what, what actually had happened, I started feeling much better about it that I wasn't the horrible clinician that I thought I was, or at least if I was, I wasn't doing anything bad or evil or wrong. I did the best that I could. So I hope you guys appreciate that. And I hope you guys give yourselves a break because everyone goes through this.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01] I really appreciate you guys listening. Go check out the very dental Facebook group. It's a great group and tell a friend about the podcast and I hope you find it helpful. And we will catch you next week.