What does it really mean to be a good dentist?
Technical skill matters. So do knowledge, judgment, and experience. But after a lifetime in dentistry, Dr. Bill Carroll came to believe that the most important questions facing dentists often have little to do with teeth.
What is success? How much is enough? When should we treat—and when should we refer? How do we help patients without selling to them? What responsibility comes with professional knowledge? And how do we build a rewarding career without sacrificing the life that career was supposed to make possible?
In The Good Dentist, Dr. Carroll brings together lessons drawn from decades as a restorative dentist, periodontist, educator, and lecturer. With candor, humor, and hard-earned perspective, he explores excellence, competence, money, patient autonomy, the helping relationship, professional responsibility, and the future of dentistry.
This is not a textbook about how to perform dentistry.
It is a book about the kind of dentist—and the kind of person—you become while practicing it.
It is written for dentists just beginning the climb, those somewhere along the trail, and those who have traveled far enough to turn around and help the person coming behind them.