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Professional Courtesy: Get Off the Hamster Wheel Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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Get Off the Hamster Wheel?
by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine
The novelty of New Year's resolutions has faded and now everything is officially back to normal. Running on the hamster wheel of life. In the groove. Status quo. Whatever you want to call it, this is the state we often strive to achieve. Why? Because, humans resist all form of change. When things change it is a disruption to our happy little rut of a life and it requires us to adapt, to modify old habits and to repeat the new habits enough times that they become a part of our happy little rut.

This month my goal is to encourage you to embrace change and to seek meaningful ways to make changes in your personal and professional life this year. This is not to say that you should change just for the sake of change; when you learn to make alterations to your normal course of business, the unexpected parts of life tend to blend in and become easier to handle. If you are a dentist, you are considered one of the most difficult people to change in the dental ecosystem. To you, I present the dual challenge of making changes in your own life and challenging your team members to make changes to the way you run your practice.

Let's start with the dentists. I will be the first to admit that I love when a procedure goes as planned: the instruments and materials are there, my patient gets numb quickly and there are no complications or delays that ruin our schedule. My affection for routine is in competition with my mantra for change. The most impactful change to my world view was to simply look at everything I do through the following prism: Is there a more efficient way to do this? And is this the best way?

I will provide a very brief and simple example from my practice:
When we first incorporated fluoride varnish in our hygiene department, the hygienists started placing the varnish right after they finished, and before the doctor's exam, because that's what we had always done with the rinse and foam. We immediately stopped that practice because you cannot examine teeth covered in varnish. When the hygienists started putting the varnish on after the exam, I noticed they would move back from the assistant side (where they can access computer and put up digital X-rays during exam) to the doctor side, re-glove and apply the varnish. That still didn't seem right so I started to put the varnish on for them at the end of my exam. I'm already gloved and sitting in the right spot for this simple task. Everybody is happy!

Since we are on the topic of hygienists, I will say that hygienists share many similarities with the dentists when it comes to change. If you would like to see what resistance to change looks like, ask your hygienists to switch rooms. In my practice, three of our four hygienists work in the same room every day and they cringe at the thought of being in any other operatory in the practice. For the record, our treatment rooms are nearly identical in every way. The fourth hygienist in our practice works part-time so she is in the hygiene room of whoever is off on that particular day and thankfully, she happens to be very adaptable to change!

I would like to close with the following thoughts: resolve to make a meaningful change in one of your routines, resolve to try a new product or seek out a better technique for a clinical procedure and encourage your team to do the same. I can promise that your team will be more energized, your office will become more efficient and you won't get up in the morning and say, "It's time to make the doughnuts."

Please continue the conversation, provide feedback and share your comments online at Dentaltown.com. There is a link for comments under each article online. I can be reached by e-mail at tom@dentaltown.com.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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