The Journal
can’t manage, by just being the chief executives
but have to ‘execute’ (read: accomplish) certain
‘chief’ (read: cardinal) things as well to scale
dizzy heights.
Enlisting the challenges faced by a budding
dentist is akin to opening up a can of worms
which may seem simple and uncomplicated at
the top but in actuality is a lot worse when
rationally delved deeper into the same.
Dentistry is one of the major health care
professions which has continually been
evolving and adding novel improvisations every
now and then. The newbies (read: fresh
dentists) face umpteen challenges at the
startup which range from loans, location
scouting and short-listing, size, corporates,
competition, fiscal concerns to administrative
issues etc., and these hiccups are similar
mostly in small towns as well as larger cities
(although severity is in varying degrees). The
issues that the freshers face can be vast,
intriguing and wide; ranging starting from
patient accumulation, patient retention,
financial management, balancing the rising cost
of health care services vis-à-vis pricing in
practice, competition via clustering of dental
clinics around our setup (both old and new
especially in urban areas), knowledge and
attitude towards ethics with fellow dental
practitioners; the usage of the same with
patients vis-à-vis informed consent process,
doing effective marketing for newer practices
and conflict in advertising vis-à-vis DCI rule
book of advertising; sterilization and bio-
medical waste handling, disagreement to
treatment modalities among dentists and
patients (I guess the new as well as
experienced will agree to this one), poor record
keeping leading to a weaker defence in medico-
legal cases and finally competence amongst
dental professionals. Not to be muddled with a
gender bias and not leaving behind the
challenges faced by the working females
(dentists) as the female dentists strive hard to
balance their practice demands along side
family commitments. In a married female
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scenario, the scene is completely altered as she
has even more responsibilities and more
commitments and if you add kids to that
equation, it becomes just Herculean. Although
we are in stage of professional advancements,
yet married female dentists are the ones who
are struggling, the most to juggle between both
work and family responsibilities and still
keeping a tight leash on the on-goings.
Although, the points mentioned above
don’t make up the comprehensive list, however,
it shall still be touching upon some of the most
common obstacles; newer dentists keep on
facing commonly.
Starting from the top of the list mentioned
above, let us take up some of the key issues one
by one with possible solutions to a few as well:
1. Patient Accumulation : The first and the
foremost challenge for any newbie would
always remain the acquiring of new patients.
How to go about the task? Where to start? How
to pitch yourself in this cut throat competitive
world where everyone in the market tries to
have a bigger share of the pie? Indeed, a very
confusing scenario for a budding practitioner
which sometimes leads to despair and
disappointment when after investing firstly in
yourself (BDS and/or MDS) and then in clinic
(location, space, armamentarium, gadgets,
staff etc. and much more), one does not get
even decent returns sometimes. In today’s
times, for a start-up, the theory of good old word
of mouth only, does not serve the purpose
initially. It does work though (and that too
handsomely) but is a slow and a tedious
process sometimes taking up to 3-5 years to set
up practice fully and most of us run out of gas for
the desired amount of patience for that time
period. We have the option of print media like bill
boards, direction boards, newspaper
pamphlets, insert advertisements in newspaper
announcing our arrival to the neighbourhood or
competition but as per the DCI rulebook you
can’t do the same beyond your initial period of
3-4 months and sometimes, that is not good
enough (marketing wise).In this current
Vol. 14 No. 2
May-August 2018