S5 E04: Sticky Situations and Quick-Thinking Solutions

Wright: [00:00:00] Okay. Picture this. You're in the middle of a busy day. Patients are coming and going, and suddenly you have a situation on your hands. Hello. Hello everyone. I'm Dr. ArNelle Wright.

Ioannidou: [00:00:12] And I'm Dr. Effie Ioannidou. We are both the experts of sticky situations. So today we will be diving into this very sticky situation that sometimes pop up in the dental office and I think it's a very, useful conversation to figure out how we can handle these situations with professionalism, some cool spirit, grace, and sense of humor.

Announcer: [00:00:43] From the American Dental Association, this is Dental Sound Bites. Created for dentists by dentists. Ready? Let's dive right into real talk on dentistry's daily wins and sticky situations.

Ioannidou: [00:01:00] Hello. Hello everybody. Yeah, we are recording this episode in front of many people at SmileCon 2024 in one of the most fun and most energizing cities in the world, New Orleans.

Wright: [00:01:20] Absolutely. You know, the energy here is really electric. We have a really, really good show and a good episode for you all today. But first, if you want to be a part of our Dental Sound Bites family, please take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you listen in order to stay updated on every new episode.

Ioannidou: [00:01:39] Just dive right in, while the unexpected can throw a wrench into our day. Our guest here is here to talk about how to handle those moments with professionalism and grace. I really like grace most.

Wright: [00:01:57] I like that.

Ioannidou: [00:01:57] Yeah.

Wright: [00:01:58] Today we are so excited to kick off the conversation with our ADA president, Dr. Brett Kessler. Dr. Kessler, thank you so much for being here today. We know just how busy you are. So tell us what you're seeing at SmileCon and really what you're looking forward to most this weekend.

Kessler: [00:02:14] Thank you, ArNelle. Thank you, Effie. It's great to be here. Thanks for asking me to join this. This is one of my professional goals, by the way, to be on Dental Sound Bites. You guys have been amazing the last several years. And I listened and I was like, wonder one day if I'll even get to come on it. So.

Wright: [00:02:28] Of course.

Ioannidou: [00:02:31] We love to have you here.

Kessler: [00:02:32] Yeah. So SmileCon kicked off this morning and gosh, it, it feels, the energy is palpable. It feels like pre COVID SmileCon.

Wright: [00:02:41] Okay.

Kessler: [00:02:42] The, the, everybody's so excited to be here. The crowds are up. I see networking happening in every corner of the exhibit floor. Um, it's just great. It's great to be connected with everybody again.

Ioannidou: [00:02:56] Yeah. I mean, the, the vibes are amazing. There is a lot of energy, a lot of interaction. I really enjoy the meeting. Very busy. So just to, can I call you Brett? I know I call you Brett, but can I call you Brett on this podcast?

Kessler: [00:03:09] Um, I think you just did. Okay.

Ioannidou: [00:03:14] You have no choice. I'm calling you Brett. So a lot of our listeners love the topic of sticky situations and we had many shows about a variety of different clinical, non-clinical sticky situations. So, we are very happy to have you here to discuss this. So, we, we heard from real dentists, we heard, uh, different, real sticky situations that strike a chord for everyone. So, uh, we want to know your perspective, your sticky situations, what you can share with us that we can learn through?

Kessler: [00:03:51] Great.

Ioannidou: [00:03:52] Yeah.

Kessler: [00:03:53] The first thing that popped in my head with sticky situations was my dessert last night. My praline pie, because we are in New Orleans and they're famous for it, and, uh, I'm still picking some, no, I'm kidding.

I'm, I flossed last night. I promise. You know, I, I've been in practice for 29 years and I've seen so much and I always, every once in a while I do get surprised and, and every once in a while I surprise myself and how I deal with some of these surprises. As I think about my favorite situation that comes to mind, I had a patient, brand new patient in my practice, we would have a one-on-one consultation away from the clinical area in my consultation room and, you know, and she had an angry look on her face and I walk in. I shake her hand, I sit down, “how can I help you today?” And she's got this angry look and she says, “I'm here for my, you know, for, I need a new dentist, but I don't believe in x-rays.”

Wright: [00:04:54] That's a sticky situation.

Kessler: [00:04:56] So some popped in my head. I said, well, do you believe in the possibility that they exist?

Wright: [00:05:04] I like that.

Ioannidou: [00:05:05] Yeah. Good response.

Kessler: [00:05:06] And she laughed as well. And I, you know, just try to break the ice and then I asked her why, you know? What's your objection to having x-rays? “Oh, they're not necessary and it's just a way for a dentist to make money.” And I'm like, well, I assume you chose to come to me because you've heard of my reputation and you know, you want my best work. Well, I'm like, “there's a couple things that I need so I can give you what you came for.”

Wright: [00:05:35] Yeah

Kessler: [00:05:36] And I don't like to drive to a destination I don't know without a map and x-rays are that map for me and I don't make a ton of money on x-rays. That's not where I make my money, trust me, but if you want to be my patient, there's a couple things that I need and this is one of them, and she accepted, to get the x rays and we moved forward.

Um, she was not a happy patient though. And she, you know, we saw that it wasn't a good fit and she left the office. So sometimes that's the best case scenario.

Ioannidou: [00:06:11] Yeah. No, but I mean, I find it, it's really interesting. The approach that you chose that, you know? To use logic and empathy to try to understand how the patient felt, but also rationalize your decision and your treatment plan. I mean, this is fantastic, but a lot of people have strong opinions, right?

Wright: [00:06:31] Yeah, this happens all the time. I think especially with our newer dentists, it's something to expect that you're going to have a patient who is resistant to both x-rays and fluoride and those are things that we know, you know, from the science that we actually need in practice.

Kessler: [00:06:47] Yeah. And I, you know, I practice in Denver, Colorado. There's two-million people in the greater Denver area. I only need about 750 of them in my practice. I'm not to be the dentist for everybody and maybe she could have gone to another dentist that wasn't, that didn't value x-rays like I did and maybe she got what she wanted.

Um, but if, you know, my signature is on all of my work and in order for my signature to be, for me to be proud of my signature, proud of my work, I need certain things and I won't go below a certain standard.

Wright: [00:07:20] Correct.

Ioannidou: [00:07:20] Do you feel that the most difficult, sticky situations are situations related to behavior or clinical treatment, clinical perspective of work?

Like the actual dental work or the behavioral management of the patients?

Kessler: [00:07:39] You know, I would say it's both.

Ioannidou: [00:07:41] Okay.

Kessler: [00:07:42] You know, we're imperfect. We as dentists, we're imperfect beings, working on imperfect beings in very unfavorable environments. Dentistry is hard and even with lots of years of experience, sometimes we're not perfect and so sometimes I've had unforeseen outcomes that, you know, patients aren't too happy about and I found I have to be upfront when I make a mistake and let them know.

Um, but a lot of times it, it goes on the other end where the patient expectations and what I can deliver based on what they're expecting don't always meet up and I think the best thing that I've learned is really how to, you know, how to say no and not get into situations that could, that may not be favorable because of the patient's expectations. I never got burned on the cases I didn't do.

Wright: [00:08:36] True. True. Love that. That's a good piece of advice.

Kessler: [00:08:39] And if you can filter that out before you get into it, everybody's happier.

Wright: [00:08:44] Yeah. I have one question for you. What was the most unexpected or surprising piece of good advice that you've received when you went through a hard situation?

Kessler: [00:08:56] You are your most valuable asset.

Wright: [00:08:59] That's an affirmation of mine, by the way, too. I'm my best asset.

Kessler: [00:09:03] And take care of yourself as such. I'm going to be saying that a lot this year in my role as president and, but it's not mine. I was, you know, imparted that by one of my mentors.

Wright: [00:09:13] Yeah.

Kessler: [00:09:14] And, you know, I have to be at my best and dentistry is an amazing, an amazing profession, but it affords us an amazing opportunity to have a great life.

Wright: [00:09:26] Yeah.

Kessler: [00:09:26] And I am a dentist, but it's not who I am. It's what I do.

Ioannidou: [00:09:30] Yeah. And I love it. That's right. Yeah.

Kessler: [00:09:32] I love it and so if I can take care of myself in the best possible way, in the, in the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social aspects. I'll be able to live an amazing life as a result of the profession that I chose.

Ioannidou: [00:09:46] Yeah. All right, well, that's a great advice. It's a positive vibe, I like it. We know that you're very busy and we, I mean, we would love to stay here with you and chat forever.

Wright: [00:09:58] Yeah.

Ioannidou: [00:09:59] But so we know you're very busy and we know that you have to go, but we really appreciated the fact that you stopped by our little party here.

Kessler: [00:10:07] Like I said, this was a bucket list item for me.

Wright: [00:10:10] Well, thank you so much for being here. We're so glad that you were able to come by. We feel like we've shared so many sticky, sticky situations over the past. And so, once you're gone, I will make sure that we start talking about ours. Right, Effie?

Ioannidou: [00:10:25] Oh, gosh.

Kessler: [00:10:26] Awesome. Yes, well, thanks for all you do.

Wright: [00:10:28] Thanks for being here.

Kessler: [00:10:29] Thanks for all you do and what you do for the profession. It's so impactful. You're helping a lot of people and you're connecting with a ton of us.

Wright: [00:10:35] All right.

Ioannidou: [00:10:36] Thank you.

Wright: [00:10:37] We'll be right back.

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Ioannidou: [00:11:26] So rumor has it that there are some people here in the audience that want to share their experiences and their sticky situations. Have you heard this rumor?

Wright: [00:11:36] I did. And I'm super excited to hear that other people experience some sticky things in practice and that we are not alone.

So, is there anyone in the audience who's going to come up and share? Okay. So, I think we have one person go ahead and come on up. Come and hang with us.

Okay. Tell us who you are and where you're from, and we would love to hear your story.

Johnson: [00:12:03] So my name is Jared Johnson and I am a pediatric dentist in Muscatine, Iowa.

Wright: [00:12:07] Welcome Dr. Johnson to the show.

Ioannidou: [00:12:10] Welcome again to the show.

Wright: [00:12:12] Very true. Last season. So, tell us your story.

Johnson: [00:12:16] Yeah. So this one is actually something Dr. Kessler said he got in trouble for, some never got in trouble for something he didn't do. I have a situation where I did. So as a pediatric dentist, we treat kids at the hospital and I have to bring all my equipment over there and we don't really have a good connection to remote back into our practice management system.

So we bring all our x-rays and the treatment plan and I had a patient that we were taking to do pretty much all the posterior teeth and then some extractions of the front teeth. And I extracted the two front teeth and I was supposed to extract a supernumerary that was under that and I did not. I forgot about it and the patient went back to recovering to the parents and all of a sudden they're calling me back in to talk to the family because the parents were upset because I could see the supernumerary tooth.

Wright: [00:13:05] How did you navigate that experience?

Ioannidou: [00:13:07] That's tough. Yeah.

Johnson: [00:13:09] Yeah, I explained I made a mistake to the parents and I apologized and I said, I'm happy to take your kid back if you'd like to go back since they haven't had anything to eat. I'm happy to stay around. I respect that if you don't trust me anymore and you don't want me to do it that, you know, we can move on and go from here.

Um, but we ended up letting them have some time, the parents to talk, they decide they're already there and, um, I took care of the anesthesia, the second anesthesia bill for them and didn't charge him for the extractions and they came out of that with the treatment getting done, but we didn't do any harm to the patient.

So yeah, it was definitely something we've made corrections for. So we don't do that again.

Wright: [00:13:48] Well, what was the one system? Was it just not having the practice management software?

Johnson: [00:13:52] Yeah. So the practice management software doesn't show the supernumerary on the chart for the extraction. So I was going off the chart and not off the written treatment plan. So now we print all the treatment plans and I'll go over it the day before and highlight anything that's not on there so we don't miss it.

Wright: [00:14:07] Good, good, good, good.

Ioannidou: [00:14:08] Yeah. Safeguards. Yeah. I mean it's better to forget than to extract a tooth that you were not supposed to extract.

Wright: [00:14:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that's really good.

Okay. And did you have a conversation with your team after that? Like, how did you navigate that from a team perspective?

Johnson: [00:14:23] We looked at how we could correct it and then I obviously called malpractice and we got the billing for the hospital to stop. So the family didn't end up with that second anesthesia bill. So I think coming back with your team and...

Wright: [00:14:34] Yeah, just kind of like powwowing a little bit and like...

Johnson: [00:14:37] Seeing how we can prevent this from happening again.

Ioannidou: [00:14:39] Yeah. Now, tell me how you felt when you realized that you. “Oops. I forgot.”

Johnson: [00:14:46] I mean, I was embarrassed, you know, we didn't do any harm and that was kind of what kept me going. We can still, we still help the family and I didn't, we didn't charge him and we got them, got them through what they needed to do safely and I think that's the best outcome that we could have at the end of the day.

Ioannidou: [00:15:01] A hundred percent and I think the fact that you went there and faced the truth, you know, and you were honest with them. I think this is like, that shows courage. You know, a lot of people would react very differently. So I think to be upfront, to be honest, to just, you know, present the case as it is.

Wright: [00:15:23] Do you mind me asking how early in your career you are when that happened or at what stage?

Johnson: [00:15:28] That was about a year ago.

Wright: [00:15:29] About a year. OK, so the reason I ask is because and so, you know, as newer dentists, I think it's just important to kind of highlight that some of these things may happen and like, it could really weigh on us mentally and so from a wellness perspective, it can really weigh on your mental health. So I think that's a great question that you asked.

Ioannidou: [00:15:47] But it's also important the fact that you, analyze the situation and you saw where the gaps are and what has to be corrected. I think this is very important because many people will say, “oh, you know, it's human, I forgot.” I know, you know, mistakes happen, whatever, but I think the fact that you, you broke down every single piece of it and you point your finger and you said, “okay, this is where the gap is and we have to take care of that.”

All right, that's very important. Thank you for sharing this. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Johnson: [00:16:21] Well, thank you for having me.

Ioannidou: [00:16:22] Love.

Wright: [00:16:22] Yes, no problem and so, is there anybody else in the audience who would like to share a story, a sticky situation?

Ioannidou: [00:16:30] I hear there is another one.

Wright: [00:16:31] There is. Come on up. Alright.

Ioannidou: [00:16:37] So yeah, why don't you tell us who you are. Introduce yourself and give us the story.

Wright: [00:16:42] Give us the juice.

Schoblaske: [00:16:42] Okay. My name is Alayna Schoblaske and I'm a general dentist. I practice in Medford, Oregon, which is in the Southern part of the state.

And my sticky situation, I get to practice in a federally qualified health center and so, we get to serve patients that have complicated lives and sometimes have a lot going on when they come into our offices. Maybe you haven't been into the dentist for a long time because they couldn't afford it or didn't know we existed or were really anxious. And so, this is a patient that I had been seeing for a little bit of time, but it had been a while since he had been in for his checkup.

And I asked the basic question that we often do, “How you doing? How's it been? How's your year been?” And he opened up to me and just started telling me all of these challenging things that had been going on in his life, his own sticky situation and at the ADA, we talk so much about our own personal wellness and I think that has helped me be more comfortable talking to patients about their wellness as well.

And so, I felt really grateful to be more comfortable navigating that conversation. I thought that in that moment, it was really important to ask him, I'm like, “hey, you know, we, we have about 30 minutes together today. Seems like you're having a really hard time and the dental work is not going to be the most important thing for you today. Do you want to talk about what's going on in your life and we can get you connected with some better resources?” And he, he agreed to that plan.

We rescheduled his exam and working in a federally qualified health center I feel super lucky. We have what's called a behavioral health support specialist integrated into our building. So I work with seven other dentists and we have one behaviorally health trained person in our clinic that helps support us and our patients that are having sticky situations with their behavioral health.

So I stayed with the patient. We had my dental assistant go and grab our behavioral health support specialist. His name is Ryan, he's fantastic and so Ryan was able to then come in. We were able to transition that patient to talk to Ryan and Ryan was eventually able to get that patient set up with a therapist that he was able to access.

I think within the week we got him set up and so that felt like, you know, it didn't have to do, I never touched a handpiece, I never touched a mirror or a probe that whole visit, but I think I was still able to take really good care of him in that moment.

Wright: [00:19:10] Absolutely.

Ioannidou: [00:19:11] I'm in a unique situation. This is, first of all, kudos. Second, it makes me think that in any other setting, probably, the route that you chose and the available resources that you had, wouldn't be even an option.

Wright: [00:19:31] And you made them available to him.

Ioannidou: [00:19:33] Yeah, this is unbelievable.

Wright: [00:19:34] You informed him about it.

Ioannidou: [00:19:35] So you turn a sticky situation to a very productive visit and interaction, right? Look at you.

Schoblaske: [00:19:43] I do think though, I think that while I practice in a unique setting and had unique access to Ryan, I do think that any of us could have had that conversation to say, “hey, the x-rays, the exam, the filling, the extraction is not the most important thing for you today. Let me connect with you as a human and make sure that maybe you know about your county health department or you know about a online counseling service or something like that.” That the patient could at least feel like they have a next step. So I do think it's important for us as dentists to be able to have those bridging conversations.

Ioannidou: [00:20:21] I also think that the choice that you made at the moment, the deep listening to the patient. Build the trust and this trust will, then the next steps will be actually product of this trust.

Wright: [00:20:37] Yeah.

Ioannidou: [00:20:39] Yeah. So that's great. I love it.

Wright: [00:20:41] That was really, really good.

Yeah, so one of the things that I was going to ask is like, how important do you think it is taking that pause like from our day to day? Because we have production goals, if we can be candid. So like, if you're in a practice, regardless of where you work, so there's the business side and then there's like taking care of the person and so at what point do you, you know, not get on that merry go round all the time? Or do you think that it's important that we can train up a team member to also kind of, we can pass the torch and say, “all right, so we're going to take you here so that doc can continue going from room to room?”

I don't know. That was like a loaded question, but just walk us through, you know, some of those from your perspective.

Schoblaske: [00:21:24] Totally. I heard two questions in there.

Wright: [00:21:26] Yeah, there were. Yeah, yeah.

Schoblaske: [00:21:28] I'll start by how do we get rid of the production goals? And I think like you said, Dr. Effie, that, that trust that was built in that that interaction, that patient came back and he, he came to his exam and I think that he and I have a better and stronger relationship because of that moment.

And so. Not, not, or maybe indirectly we were able to get to some, a bigger treatment plan or more treatment acceptance and a better relationship in the future. So I think that, that investment of time was worth it in the end.

And then how do we train up a team member so that it's not dentist's time in the room all of the time? We, I think that having it would be easy to incorporate that into a huddle or a team meeting to talk about let's role model if a patient tells us something challenging, what resources might we have? Maybe you have a little flyer at your front desk or a little business card that you could give to someone with a QR code you could link to the public ADA wellness resources. Patients might be able to benefit from some of those as well.

Wright: [00:22:38] I have one more question. I'm sorry to keep this. This is totally off script, but I'm an empath, right? And so sometimes these situations, they kind of over overtake me because I get so, I get so involved almost and so it may cause me to lose track.

So If you were to help someone who may take on other people's like issues a little too far, like how can we prevent that from our own as doctors, our own wellness? Does that make sense? Like what can we do to also continue to take care of ourselves while we're also taking care of our patients?

Schoblaske: [00:23:13] Yeah, I relate a lot to being an empath as well. I, that appointment was at the end of the day and I remember feeling really grateful for that because I think I would have carried. a heaviness with me throughout my day. There's a couple of things that I have found that helped me navigate those situations. Three things.

So one is a debrief with my team afterwards. I think that, that impacts me. It might also impact a dental assistant. So after that patient is home, is dismissed for the day. We always find time to chat about how that went, check in about “how are you feeling? Is there anything unfinished? Do we need to call the patient tomorrow? See how he's doing?”

What would make us feel like that is complete? And we took care of him. And also, like, what feelings are up for us right now? Just naming that feeling. “I feel sad. I feel overwhelmed. I feel embarrassed. I feel upset.” Sometimes just naming those can help get them off of our chest. And then I do think that finding a ritual or routine in your day because how much, how often do we have those situations where you have that sticky situation and then you have to walk into the five year old next door and it's their first dental visit and you're like, “hi, welcome to the dentist. This is so exciting.”

And so for me, it's washing my hands, right? It's something that we have to do between every appointment anyway, I hope. And so, when I've had a moment where I use the word flooded, I feel flooded. Just my whole system feels like a wash with emotion. So when I feel flooded, I just take some extra time to focus on how the water feels, how the soap smells. I dry my hands really well. I just give myself those 20, 30 seconds to ground back down, take a deep breath and then step into whatever is next.

Ioannidou: [00:25:08] That's a good point because many times we do things, you know, even like a clinical sticky situation that can freak you out and you can have this cold sweat on your back and you're like, “oh, damnit. What did I do?”

Schoblaske: [00:25:20] Yeah. Tough surgical extractions and I'm like sweating and my hands are shaking. 

Ioannidou: [00:25:26] Complications you don't expect to see. Fracture root at the end of the day. So, I mean, there are so many things, root in the sinus. I mean, there are a lot of things can happen, right? 

Schoblaske: [00:25:43] Yeah, they all have. 

Ioannidou: [00:25:45] And I hate when people sometimes joke. I had a friend once said, “oh, I just placed an implant on the number nine, whatever and then I jokingly, and then I, you know, I felt like I penetrated the nasal cavity, but then I said to the patient, you will be fine.”

You know, when you scratch your nose, you may feel something like this is not a joke. 

Schoblaske: [00:26:04] Well, like Dr. Johnson said, we make mistakes and we're allowed to make mistakes, but it's our responsibility to inform the patient and make sure that they know how to take good care of themselves. 

Ioannidou: Certainly what you do and you focus on this, it all started when you mentioned the water and there's the, the scent of the soap and that, that, that give you a little bit of a positive vibe, right? The water running it's, it's a 30 second meditation.

Wright: [00:26:34] It's soothing. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

Schoblaske: [00:26:37] Pick a soap scent that you love. 

Ioannidou: [00:26:39] I know. Yeah. 

Wright: [00:26:40] Well, we are so glad that you were able to join us today for this episode. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Glad it worked out.

Schoblaske: Yes, it did. Thank you.

Ioannidou: [00:26:49] Both stories are amazing. 

Wright: [00:26:50] So amazing. Yeah. 

Schoblaske: [00:26:51] Thanks. 

Ioannidou: [00:26:52] Thank you. Bye. So, it's time to. 

Wright: [00:26:57] Well, now we can share some of our own stories. Can we? 

Ioannidou: [00:26:59] Yeah. Oh gosh. 

Wright: [00:27:02] Well, so I feel like, so we've heard from everybody else, what is the sticky situation that you've experienced over the time of your career that you want to share Dr. Effie? 

Ioannidou: [00:27:13] You know, I worked in private practice and I was in academia, have been in academia for the rest, the last of what? 24, 25 years in my life. So I would say not very many sticky situations in my clinical practice in academics. Okay. Other type of sticky situations, of course, but not clinical. However, I remember I still have memories of a variety of craziness that I faced in private practice in Greece.

So in Greece, you know, it's a whole new spectrum of craziness. I remember I did, I had, I don't know if I ever shared this. I don't think I did. Okay. Sure. So, I had a perio surgery. I was a solo practicing periodontist. I did a perio surgery on it. I remember it was fairly young woman, like 40, 45, posterior periodontitis localized.

I did my flap, dah, dah, dah, a suture done. I started giving postoperative instructions and then I said, “do you have any questions?” And she said, “I do actually, would this surgery compromise my sexual life?” I said, “in what way?” So, I will leave it right here, but so following it, I was like, what?

Wright: [00:28:47] I've heard some of those things before in practice, actually. 

Ioannidou: [00:28:49] Yeah. I haven't, it was very unique. So I was for, for a few seconds I pause and I didn't know how to address this. You know, in a professional way, in a clear way. Make sure that the patient understands what the risks are and whatever she had in her mind. I tried to clear it, but yeah, that was one of the sticky situations I experienced, but it seems like you had experienced like this too. 

Wright: [00:29:15] Well, I've heard, I've heard some things like that in practice. It wasn't in my practice shadowing a doctor. Before I, you know, became a dentist, but I've had some of those conversations being had.

So, my sticky situation, I do have to frame it. So, I hope we have a few minutes, but this was around about COVID and the offices were shut down and in my practice setting I work in a dental support organization, right? And so, one of the offices had closed, like, was going to be closing down permanently after we were able to come back to work from COVID and the doctor actually left, but prior to the office closing down and COVID and all of that, they prepped a crown, for a patient. So, the patient had been in a temp for some time.

So, as you all know, once the office is closed down, we come back, you know, patients are scattered. They just need a provider and in this particular case, I was on the receiving end. Receiving end of a crown, but when I went to go and take the temp off, typically I don't necessarily like to cement crowns on a crown that I didn't prep, but I did my examination and all of that, took the temp off, but there was no, there was no prep. Like, I don't know, there was no tooth. Like it was almost like a root tip and so I'm like, I don't have a crown prep here, you know, like it's gone. And so, I had to bear the bad news to the patient. Like, we had the final crown in our possession and my story has two parts.

So, the first thing is, the patient was very upset that they, they almost felt like I couldn't deliver on the fact that the crown needed to be, like in their minds, they still could have this crown in their mouth and I'm like, I'm telling you there's nothing for me to cement the crown to. So that's number one. So then to take it a step further, as you all know, we have social media platforms, right? And so, the person, they found me online. Yes. They found me online. Not only did they write the review, they didn't leave a Google review. They wrote a review underneath like probably 10 of my posts, went to people that I follow, went to people that follow me and copied the same post. 

Ioannidou: [00:31:30] Oh my God. 

Wright: [00:31:30] It was a nightmare. Very mean and I was in about year, I think it was like year three or four. So I was still super-duper sensitive at that time and I mean, I'm still sensitive. Like, it's just my nature. Like I'm very sensitive and loving, empathetic and so, I'm just like, oh my gosh, it just felt like the world was over. My career is coming to an end. My reputation. I was, I was downward spiraling from that moment, but the beautiful thing is I had some of my friends who follow me and some of the people who it got copied to their pages, that they responded, they deleted, they alerted me and so, I was up. It was in the middle of the night, I'm like going, finding posts, deleting these posts and I mean, I never heard from the patients again, but it just kind of, it sparked like a bit of fear in me and then it kind of made me be like, “alright, well do I want to just completely ditch the whole social media thing?”

Because it's like, can people find me and target my friends and target my family? So it just, it was just a world of emotions that I wasn't prepared for and it almost just made me like want to shrink back and just be head down focused on clinical and not have this other side of me, which I love, as you all know, like through social media.

So yeah, that's my sticky situation. 

Ioannidou: [00:32:44] This is very serious. 

Wright: [00:32:45] It's very serious, especially in this day and age. 

Ioannidou: [00:32:47] It's very threatening, actually. 

Wright: [00:32:48] Yeah. And I was just like, oh, it's like, yeah. 

Ioannidou: [00:32:51] But you, you definitely approached it with professionalism and grace.

Wright: [00:32:56] Yeah, professionalism and grace.

Like, I just explained that I couldn't do the crown, but it was just like the aftermath that came after that, that I wasn't prepared for, because we all know that we're going to, you know, get pushback from patients on things like x-rays, crowns, fluoride, all of those things, but I just didn't know it was going to go to the next level.

Ioannidou: [00:33:14] On one hand, you like this direct communication and access, right? With your community, the dental community, and the public. But on the other hand, this extreme reaction, very extreme on your public profile.

Wright: [00:33:33] Correct, yes. 

Ioannidou: [00:33:34] Yeah and I mean, certainly we don't want to scare people, but it's something that, you know, we have to be aware of. There are risks and benefits, right? 

Wright: [00:33:41] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Ioannidou: [00:33:46] Your story was definitely better than my story. 

Wright: [00:33:48] Thank you. Oh, well, I don't like that. I had to go through it though. I just wish that it was not a part of my story.

Announcer: [00:33:57] On the next dental Sound Bites. 

Wright: [00:33:59] We're going to be talking about vaping and e-cigarettes and their impact on oral health.

This has been an amazing episode. It's always good. It's always good to record live.

Ioannidou: [00:34:14] It’s time to wrap this episode, but before we do this, we have to thank, first of all, Brett that is not here. And we had a great episode, with everybody in the audience and now I guess for…

Wright: [00:34:26] Being here. 

Ioannidou: [00:34:28] And share stories with us that are really amazing, very useful.

Wright: [00:34:33] If you like this episode, make sure you share it with a friend. Then be sure to subscribe to the podcast, wherever you're listening so that you can get the latest episodes. You can rate it, you can write a review and make sure that you follow us on social media. 

Ioannidou: [00:34:47] On social media. Yes and don't forget that the conversation continues with a bonus episode on the ADA member app and the our YouTube channel.

You can catch all the exclusive bonus content and everything you didn't hear in the show. Although we share so much. 

 Wright: [00:35:05] We shared a lot, all right. 

Ioannidou: [00:35:07] Thank you guys. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Wright: [00:35:10] Bye.

Announcer: [00:35:13] Thank you for joining us. Dental Sound Bites is an American Dental Association podcast. You can also find this show resources and more on the ADA Member App and online at ADA.org/podcast.