Letter From an Editor: Intentional Involvement

With 2023 now in the rearview mirror, so begins the annual period of self-reflection. I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, but I’d like to think I can make a concerted effort at continuous self-improvement. This issue’s theme is involvement, which comes naturally to us as high achievers. We are involved in study clubs, volunteer events, lectures, community outreach, mentoring, political action committees, and continuing education. Within the first few weeks of 2024, we may already find our calendars quickly filling with such commitments.

As surgeons, we are trained to continuously add more to our plates. Yes, there’s always room in the schedule and an emergency to add more cases this week. Yes, we will return the call from a dentist and, yes, we will accept the leadership position for which we were considered. With so many offerings of outside-of-work engagements, it can be easy to spread yourself too thin, disrupting the ever-elusive work-life balance. In the spirit of introspection, I’ve considered how to make my involvement more impactful this year.

When I entered the private practice world, I had the good fortune of joining a well-established office with veteran team members and vetted office-wide systems. I’d like to think I didn’t take this for granted, but this enabled me to focus on establishing myself as a new surgeon, and I didn’t ponder the details of how the team achieved this level of cohesion. Like many, in the years since the pandemic, my practice has struggled with employee retention, or lack thereof. Many team members moved out of state or pursued other career interests, and we found ourselves in a constant state of hiring for both administrative and clinical positions. Most applicants had little to no dental experience, but I’ve always been an advocate for hiring for personality, coachability, and potential. However, being in a perpetual state of rebuilding fatigues the tenured staff, exhausts team morale, and, at the risk of sounding self-involved, has affected our ability to run an efficient and ideal schedule to best serve our patients.

After much rumination, it occurred to me that perhaps there’s been too much delegation on my part. Like any relationship, we must have trust, clear expectations, and effective communication and that this has been lost to the tides of the turnover. We have training manuals and protocols, but as the now-senior team members train the newbies, I’ve realized there’s been a dilution of information. Thus, my intention for this year is to be more involved in the training of my team members, and I believe this must be a continuous process.

So, how can I be more involved, without micromanaging? My goal is to empower the individuals to create a team of leaders. Of course, we do emergency training at regular intervals, but only occasionally do I prioritize training on consultations, medical concepts, and the why behind the how. As our days become hectic, this seems ancillary and falls by the wayside. Perhaps if I commit the time to scheduled training, I can mitigate the knowledge disparities that fuel confusion and subsequent dissent within the team. In doing so, I hope to build shared responsibility and augment camaraderie. In turn, I hope this will result in the team feeling more valued and personal satisfaction and, subsequently, increase staff retention. From a clinical perspective, we can ensure we are maintaining best practices and provide optimal, safe, and up-to-date patient care.

Involvement in causes outside our daily practice replenishes our enthusiasm for the profession, helps those in need, and provides personal gratification. This issue highlights inspiring stories of surgeons and their out of office pursuits. Whatever involvement you chose to embark on this year, ACOMS thanks you for your service!

Lauren E. Basile, DMD

ACOMS Review Editor