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Left or Right Foot: Starting in Real World Dentistry by Jen Butler

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Famed American author and professor Isaac Asimov is quoted as saying, “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” Life contains many transitions. Depending on how we move into each transition oftentimes determines our ability to navigate it and come out successful on the other side. This is ever so true when transitioning from dental school into real world dentistry.

Leaving dental school for a position in a dental office can feel like leaving your security blanket with your mommy on the first day of kindergarten. You say good-bye to friends, professors, schedules and people telling you what to do and when. There’s a huge safety net in place for you to fall, learn, get back up and try again. With the move of a tassel and a letter from the board, you are now free to go and make all kinds of decisions on your own. This is one of those life transitions that you have to prepare for in order to navigate it and emerge successful. This is one of those times when it’s important to start off on the right foot. Here’s how.

Reinforce your support system
In dental school you have instructors, advisers and mentors to rely on for guidance and support. Tapping into their decades of experience takes pressure off of you to fully know the weight of your decisions. Reference material, sample cases, textbooks and clinical resources are at your disposal and displayed for easy use. Graduating dental school is a celebratory event. It also means leaving much of your support system behind. Reinforce your support system is critical to starting your career on the right foot and keeping stress low. Take these steps:

1. Build your own library
Having reference material on a variety of topics will prove highly useful when you find yourself working independently. Finding answers quickly while a patient awaits your diagnosis will aid in increasing your clinical confidence and patient trust. Be sure to include books on: influence, team development, leadership, communication, marketing and clinical literature.

2. Attend regular study clubs
Study clubs provide an opportunity to surround yourself with dentists in all phases of clinical experience and stages of business. They are untapped knowledge for you to learn what to do in a dental business and what to stay away from. To make any study club meeting worthwhile, be fearless, ask questions and build a network.

3. Participate on message boards
The power of message boards is that with any question you ask, situation you have, case you struggle with, or advice you seek, you’ll get a 360-degree view from the many opinions and experiences shared by members. Active message boards, like on Dentaltown.com, expand your view of dentistry while filling your toolbox of resources, tips and tricks. Professional growth and intellectual learning take place when you find people who are your opposite, or better yet, your complement. Only talking to those with similar views, opinions and clinical philosophies keeps you in a small box with a limited number of solutions.

4. Use social media
Through social media you can easily build your virtual panel of experts. With the opportunity of free or low-cost webinars, blogs, tele-seminar series, and a host of other kinds of online learning environments, you can conveniently learn about the business of dentistry from people who know business.

5. Fill in your gaps
The sooner you accept we all have gaps, the sooner you can fill them. Whether your gap is in marketing, leadership, understanding P&Ls, accounting or stress management, there are professionals in other industries for you to partner with who can make your road to success easier.

6. Find a clinical mentor
Clinical instructors unfold the dentist in each of you. They get you to a point where you can fix teeth, pass your boards and work alone. They don’t teach you everything. Finding a clinical mentor where you can share your cases via remote access, brainstorm complicated solutions, and provide support when a procedure fails is vital to the continued development of your skills. The difference with a mentor is that they are a colleague who has been there, done that, and wants you to learn from their mistakes so you can get to your many successes more quickly.

Commit to healthy habits
Dental students develop habits of survival. Pressures build up and it’s easy to use maladaptive coping methods to gain relief. When dentists bring those habits into their new careers it sidelines them and slows down progress. Commit to change bad habits into healthy ones. Start with these:

1. Change how you breathe
Dental professionals typically have terrible breathing habits. With their hunched-over, chairside postures and constant, rounded shoulders dentists limit the amount of oxygen they take in on each breath.
  • Every morning and evening, spend two full minutes deep, diaphragm breathing. Your belly should move up and down.
  • While driving to work, take a few moments at a red light and take some deep breaths.
  • Before walking into every operatory, take two deep breaths; five counts in, 10 counts out.


2. Get more sleep
The luxury of sleep often evades dental students who are too busy balancing the rigors of academics with clinical hours. Studies show that people getting less than seven hours of sleep have enough decrease in brain function to impact their critical thinking and impair judgment. Set up your schedules so that you receive at minimum eight hours of sleep each night.

3. Eat three meals a day (plus snacks)
To maintain the energy necessary of a busy dental office, it’s time to take a long look a your nutrition and dump the fast food or no food habit. Coffee and carbs or a quick energy drink as breakfast and skipping lunch all together isn’t realistic as a long-term nutrition plan. Be kind to your body and fuel it properly with three meals a day plus some healthy snacks.

4. Drink water
Most people, let alone dental professionals, don’t drink enough water. Systems in our bodies need pure water to function. Without it our body struggles. Dehydration leads to feeling tired and experiencing mental strain.

Shed the dental school mentality
Cut-throat competition is part of the culture in graduate schools. You’re all fighting for the same scholarships, honors, awards, faculty attention and praise. This culture conditions you to see your fellow peers as someone to beat. Maybe not the enemy ... but certainly not an ally either. Bringing this narrow view from dental school into the real world of dentistry causes serious damage. Start seeing the dentist next door, not as a competitor to destroy, but as a colleague to build a partnership with. Here are some focus areas:

1. Competition
Dentistry can be a tough world and seeing the doctor next door as someone to beat instead of someone to partner with makes for a lonely and isolated business. Drop the competition attitude and adopt one of collaboration. Real world dentistry isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. Doing it alone is a stressful road.

2. Perfectionism
Dental school faculties drill (pun intended) the idea of perfectionism deep into the minds of their students. Practice makes perfect so you go through dozens of typodonts seeking perfect margins within the perfect timeframe while exuding the perfect level of clinical confidence. This perfectionist mindset always leaves you feeling less than and never good enough, ultimately weighing you down and holding you back for years.

Turning that perfectionist mentality into one of exceptional care is smart. You can be specific with the behavior that defines exceptional care. Behaviors are measurable, benchmarks are attainable. When you focus on exceptional care it’s reasonable. Focusing on exceptional care continues to motivate you and lifts you up. It’s sustainable in the real world.

3. That’s mine!
Going it alone in school is encouraged. It’s a sign that you are mastering your skills and are doing well. Going it alone in a dental office is a sure sign that burnout is up ahead. Instead of you being number one, be part of the number one-team. Share in learning, building, growth and profitability of your office. Share the worries, stress and problems so you can also share in the process, systems and solutions of every great practice. Give to others first before receiving to demonstrate loyalty, trust and engagement.

Real world dentistry is more than fixing teeth. It’s about a business of serving others while providing a good life for the people who work with you. Have that as your mission and you’ll make the transition from dental school to dental world easily.

Jen Butler, MEd, CPC, BCC, has been working in the area of stress management and resiliency coaching for more than 20 years. She is available as a coach/consultant, speaker and trainer. To learn more about her services and sign up for her monthly stressLESS newsletter go to www.jenbutlercoaching.com. Take the Dental Stress Self-Assessment at www.jenbutlercoaching.com/quiz/ to fi nd out your stress levels. Her partnership with The Business Backer removes any financial barrier so you get the support you deserve. Go to www.thebusinessbacker.com/JenButler or contact Jen Butler directly at 623-776-6715 for more information.

Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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