Stop Being a Perfectionist – it’s OK to Fail – PDP184

When the patient feels pain during an ID block. When a matrix does not seal the cavity perfectly. When the shade of your crown doesn’t blend as well as you would like. When the endo you did last year failed. All of these cause us anxiety. All of these are failures in some form, and as Dentists, it eats at us. Let’s admit it: we are perfectionists. Life isn’t about being perfect, but it is all to do with the effort we apply to better ourselves day to day. Failure is a major part of success, but being hung up on our shortcomings will only lead to a downward spiral, which in turn will affect our results and general practice. In this episode we are joined by Dr Marco Maiolino, all the way from beautiful Sicily, Italy. One of the biggest takeaways from my chat with Marco was the abolishment of the ‘gold standard’ or the standard of perfection - but rather, let’s aim for the ‘daily standard’ https://youtu.be/jRbgvgSpqLk Watch PDP184 on Youtube Protrusive Dental Pearl: We cannot be depressed AND grateful at the same time. Let us find moments in our day and in our Dentistry to be grateful. Need to Read it? Check out the Full Episode Transcript below! Highlights of the Episode:01:43 DENTAL PEARL - Be Grateful!02:37 - Dr. Marco Maiolino05:13 - The Technician's Perspective 08:15 - Beating Imposter Syndrome10:55 - Ideal vs. Real: Marco's Take on Dental Perfection13:00 - Lessons from Aviation17:48 - Embracing Imperfection31:00 - From Failures to Standards42:08 - How to Bounce Back from Failure   Learn more from Dr Marco Maiolino Access the CPD quiz through our app on https://www.protrusive.app, either on your browser or by downloading our mobile app. For the full educational experience, our Ultimate Education Plan gives you access to all our courses, webinars, and exclusive monthly content. Join us on Protrusive Guidance, our own platform for dental professionals. No need for Facebook anymore! 😉 If you liked this episode, you will also like IC030 - Toxic Work Cultures in Dentistry Click below for full episode transcript: Jaz's Introduction: Let's face it, no one really enjoys failure, but nothing teaches you as well as failure does. Failure really is the best educator in any discipline, especially in dentistry. Jaz’s Introduction:Of all the clinical educators that I know, the kind of people that I have the most time for are those who are happy and willing to share their failures with us. This next guest we have on today, Dr. Marco Maiolino from Siracusa in Sicily. Apparently on his three-day course on VertiPreps, the last day, like the half day is just dedicated to all his failures. And I really, really respect that. I try and emulate that. I love sharing. Well, I say love is a strong word, but I like to share my failures so we can all learn together. And with Marco, like, what he writes on his blog, it's just brilliant. There's a blog he had titled The Imperfect Dentist. And now we need to stop chasing perfection. Perfection should not be the standard. And so it's with great pleasure as part of Mental Health Month. April is Mental Health Month and so at least half the episodes will revolve mental health. It's a great way to kick off this theme by exploring this idea of perfectionism in dentistry. Dental PearlHello Protruserati, I'm Jaz Gulati, and welcome back to your favorite dental podcast. Before we join Marco to discuss about how it's okay to fail, let me give you the Protrusive Dental Pearl. This time it's a bit of a flashback to COVID times. I had Dr. Barry Alton on. I'm just going to echo something that he said. He was an interference cast, and he taught me that it is impossible to be depressed and grateful at the same time. Let me say that again. It's impossible to be depressed and grateful at the same time. So based on that, the Protrusive Pearl I want to share with you as part of mental health month is that every day when you finish work I would like you to write down or maybe make a mental note of three things you are grateful for that day. Even if you have to really, really search hard for it, try to find three things. This could be something that went clinically well. This could be something that your colleague did and you're proud of and you're grateful for their contribution. This could even be just the thought of your child being at school and they're safe and they're happy and that makes you feel grateful. This could be the cup of coffee you had and how much you savored that coffee. Actually, savoring is a big part of evidence-based happiness as well. So one thing I'm going to do on Protrusive Guidance is the day after this episode publishes, I will do that. On Protrusive Guidance, our own social network, the home of the nicest and geekiest dentists in the world. If you're not on already, head to protrusive. app and sign up today for the community plan. And you'll see the three things I was grateful for on the day after I published this episode. Oh, and guys, before we join the main episode, let me update you on how it's going with the whole project of never writing notes again. Remember that episode I did with Kevin Shannon about digital TCO? This product, which will use the audio from your consultation to write your notes for you. And I asked you to be involved in an experiment where you pay half price, locked in, and you get an extended trial. As part of being in on this deal, I want you to give feedback. So we created this space on our app, Protrusive Guidance. Call the Digital TCO feedback space. Anyone who's on the app, any dentist can, can join the space. You just have to click join and we have a little chat and we have a little forum space and you know what? It's been absolutely amazing. Your feedback has been brilliant, and Kevin's been so responsive. Like one thing I asked Kevin for was a confidence monitor. Like what if, like what happened to me, like my battery ran out on my road. That's why I've got a dual channel one, by the way. I've got the one that comes with two microphones, right? But I didn't realize the battery ran out, and so halfway through it stopped recording. Now, on Dental Audio Notes, which I also use, it's got this like a little waveform so you know you're recording. So I asked Kevin, look, can we have this confidence monitor on digital TCO? And he added it, and he added so many different things. And also something called the risk bank, which I haven't tried yet. But when you mention certain risk, it kind of populates all the warnings that you desire when you're discussing risks with your patients. So if you haven't listened to the episode, go a few back, listen to that episode about how to never write notes again, and it will just blow your mind. I'll just read a few bits of feedback we've had so far. So Dr. Horn said, I'm late to the digital TCO party, but what a party. I used it yesterday. And it was amazing. Jaz's Rode microphone set up worked great. And so by the way, I've done a comparison video of comparing the Yeti versus the Rode and why I picked the Rode, but actually the Yeti works as well. So you may check out that video. It's on YouTube. It's on the podcasts everywhere. Anyway, the setup worked great and it really helped me with the quality of my notes. And then he goes on to ask questions, but actually it had some confusion about Emax versus full gold crown. And the answer was, Kevin said, actually you need to set up your template. So there's a bit of work involved for you. Like if you really care about having notes that are so seamless, and so high quality, but you don't have to type. You just have to finish your checkup, generate, and it loads up all the notes for you. If you have that dream, like I do, then you actually need to do a little bit of work. Like compared to the hours that we're spending every day, trying to make sure our notes are awesome, just a little bit of work upfront and you'll be able to get home to your children and your spouse sooner. And the notes have been just absolutely brilliant. So what you need to do is just watch all the videos in the how to use section. So remember the website is digitaltco.co.uk/protrusive to be in on the offer. The other way to access that my website was down recently, so but I hope it still works is protrusive.co.uk/notes. That will take you to our little secret space where you can get this extended trial. And I'm going to get in and watch the how to videos. I mean, don't do what I did and just jump straight in. Even though it's still awesome, I still want you to watch the how to videos, dedicate an hour just to watch all that, set up your templates how you want them, and then you never have to write notes again. Because they auto magically generate based on conversation between you and the patient. The number one question I'm getting is, how do you speak to the patient about this? But what I say to them is, I just point to the microphone, oh by the way, new technology by the way, I'm just transcribing everything we're saying, it'll just help to generate the notes. And everyone's been fine, no one said no, I don't want to be transcribed and whatnot, everyone's been fine about it. People are used to like medical dictation and that kind of stuff, so it hasn't been an issue for my patients. Like, for me, I refuse to practice without Dental Audio Notes and Digital TCO. For any type of new patient consultation, any sort of discussion and treatment planning, any of my TMD consults, like, it just makes sure that notes are fantastic. It helps you to level up your game. And I just hate admin, which is why I love Digital TCO. So check it out. Let's now join Marco for this episode and I'll catch you in the outro. Main Episode:Dr. Marco Maiolino, welcome to the Protrusive Dental podcast. How are you my friend in Syracuse in Sicily? How do you say it? [Marco]Syracuse is on the east coast of Sicily.