Has a patient hugged you today?

At the end of each morning huddle, Dr. Mark Duncan and his staff always ask themselves which patient is going to cry that day.

They all want to be there for that moment when a patient who once was in serious pain comes in and tells them their pain is gone. They want to hear about the quality of life changes their patients have experienced, changes that they know they made possible.

But to help patients make those changes, to make patients want to hug you for what you’ve given back to them, you have to take a comprehensive approach to care. You have to look beyond just the teeth, and take dentistry beyond what you learned in dental school, Dr. Duncan said during his Monday afternoon CE session at the Greater New York Dental Meeting,  titled “Comprehensive Care-It isn’t About the Teeth! In Our Quest to Be Better Dentists, Are Our Patients Paying the Price?”

Dentistry is a profession that’s constantly changing, he said, and dentists need to embrace that change if they want to have happy, healthy careers. To help get them there, Dr. Duncan also talked about how to ask patients the right questions, how to discover the underlying cause of a problem, advanced diagnostic protocols and advanced treatment and would healing.

“Dentistry can be challenging and rewarding. And it should be,” Dr. Duncan said. “There is change going on all the time. Dentistry is such a baby profession, and there are so many things we can do today that the faculty at my dental school never would have thought of.”