46 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST GOING DIGITAL Everyone is always trying to sell you something, right? It’s always this cutting edge, or that State of the Art. Today’s dentist is exposed to a commercial and technological tornado of demands, requests and temptations to be more and get more. More streamlined, more ecological, more advanced, more scientific, more efficient, more, more, more – and always with a price tag and extra drag on everyday workflow that seems to take more, while promising to give. If you feel that way, you’re not alone. The toll on dentists everywhere from all this increased ‘ease and efficiency’, tech and wizardry, client care and high turnover in increasingly ‘productive’ conditions has put our profession on the red list in terms of stress, duress and burnout. A 2021 study found that 24.8 % of Australian dental professionals showed signs of burnout, 17.6 % had recent suicidal thoughts, and more than 25 % had diagnosed depression. The survey sample included 1483 practitioners: dentists, dental specialists, oral health therapists, dental hygienists, dental therapists and dental prosthetists. There is a dedicated national hotline, Dental Practitioner Support, partnered by the ADA, which provides confidential 24/7 assistance by phone at 1800 377 700 in response to the extremely high rates of burnout, distress, and suicidal ideation in the profession. Is dentistry really that dangerous? Or is it that we are on a transformational edge? Care-taking has its price. Much of the alarming mental health distress among dentists and their teams has been put down to the cost of caring, or compassion fatigue. But the truth is, the increasingly complex daily realities, constant demands, pressure from industry, and endless shifts and ‘innovations’ circling the dental practice are often taking more than they promise to give, as every dentist knows. “Dentistry is stressful,” Associate The dawn of the digital dentist By Jade Richardson The Ultimate Before and After ~ why going digital isn’t just about upgrading your tech. Professor Matt Hopcraft from Melbourne Dental School says. “Factors include time pressure, perfectionism, fear of litigation, demanding and unrealistic patient expectations, anxious patients, professional isolation, business pressures, staffing problems, regulatory demands and negative public perceptions of dentists.” Treatments are becoming more complex, speed is increasing, time pressure tighter than ever, and patient expectations are rising while the general public brings its own burden of stress and anguish to the dental chair. Costs are rapidly increasing and the daily realities of life in a dental practice are not just ‘evolving’ – a metamorphosis is underway. On these painful edges there is always a tension between resistance and refusal, and the desire to Leap. Personal overload is a symptom of being at that edge. Frustration, irritability, leaky moods and overwhelm are all there, and while counselling can ease the pressure, wise advice from peers, and clear choices are potential catalysts that can take you out of the pressure cooker and into the fire of transformation. One of those fires is known as ‘Going Digital’. It’s a burning question and a resistance point that has put many an established dentist into the frying pan. Do you really have to surrender to another major overhaul of the way you run your practice (by which we really mean your life)? How much tech is really useful, and how much is interference that will put you on a never-ending rollercoaster of upgrades, costs and frustrations? Dentists who have travelled this territory are speaking out. They understand resistance at the threshold of the ‘going digital’ decision is not just about investment costs and the additional burdens of retraining and reliability. Dr Isabel Holmes of Illumident in South Australia recalls facing the Digital Frontier as a tough decision with definite hurdles. “It’s a real crossroads,” she says. “There are real costs and challenges, there is a total letting go of a way of doing things, and the end of a certain culture as well. All of that is real and true.” “In our case at Illumident, it changed everything for us and there’s really no looking back.” Dr Holmes says stepping in to the digital metamorphosis brought more than just the promised speed, efficiency, precision, independence, and integration of workflow, treatment plans, scans and procedures. The first things she wants to highlight about going digital at her practices in Mount Gambier and Port Fairy are the immense shifts in engagement and enjoyability in daily life at work. “Going digital radically improves patient communication as well as workflows, which eases the pressure in all directions,” she says. “From digital intraoral scans providing real-time onscreen imagery of their mouths as a basis for exploring and planning treatments with patients on the day, through to in-house 3D printing, the first real benefit is engagement with patients. This in itself makes dentistry more of a pleasure.” Jade Richardson
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