Learning from Failures in Dentistry

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 d...