Opinion


e humans have an amazingly c onsist ent habit of ‘what if down?’


thinking. Some of you might ask, what does this mean? My father had a great expression about a fellow that lived near us who was always down and full of doom and gloom. He used to say: “Jimmy has a habit of always meeting the devil at the gate.” I asked him what he meant and he said to me: “Jimmy always worries about the worst possible things that could happen to him and they almost always never do, so he is meeting problems that don’t even exist. He is inviting exactly what he hopes to repel!” As I have said before in this


column, I read a lot of motivational material because I feel that what you surround yourself with is what you get. If you want to feel miserable, surround yourself with miserable people. If you want to feel happy about things, surround yourself with positive happy go-getters who always see the best in things. Dentistry is recession resistant.


It is not recession proof because if someone literally does not have the money to pay you then they cannot.


Column


with Dr John Barry


What if up? thinking W


However, when I say it is recession resistant, I mean that people who can afford to choose what they spend their money on, do regularly choose to spend some money on dentistry. Some practices I am working with


in Ireland are holding pretty well. They are however, practices where there is high morale. There is time spent on engaging the staff, there is some direct and indirect marketing going on. In other words, the owners are being proactive and engaging in positive behaviour. They are possibility thinkers, thinking that they will get through this period. We can work that


bit harder, work that bit smarter, be adapt- able, and roll with the blows. It gobsmacks me that some of the whiners are still doing exactly what they did and getting exactly the same results. There are a lot of people with jobs who really don’t want to take time off who would welcome being seen at 8am or at lunchtime or in the evening or on a Saturday. Why would a “quiet dentist” sit in a surgery with no


DETAILS AND CONTRIBUTORS Editor


Bruce Oxley


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Advertising sales manager Ann Craib


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communications.co.uk “It gob-


smacks me that some of the whiners are still do- ing exactly what they did and getting exactly the same results”


patients from 11-1 when they could adapt and see a grateful patient from 1-2 or in the morning or evening. We are paid for what we do, so


surely we can adapt to meet the needs of our patients. There is a chap in the Piazza St Marco in Venice who sells roses and ice cream when the sun shines and umbrellas and welly boots when the rain lashes down. That is pretty adaptable in my book and he is busy. A dentist is the only one who can legally practice dentistry, so you should be available to treat your patients when it suits them and you should be looking to provide what your patients want and need, which is maybe not what you particularly want to do. Pricing crowns at €700 and not providing very many is illogical to me when we have


loads of demand for €350 crowns and supply lots of them. It provides a far better hourly rate than zero.


®


Dr John Barry is operations director of The Dental Plan and director of The Dental Business Academy


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