Staying connected leads to growth and success
Camaraderie and affinity can mean the difference between success and failure for some professionals, especially in careers in which representation of some groups has been sporadic or where staying connected in general may be challenging. Dr. Chithra Durgam, a dentist in private practice in North Bergen, N.J., has firsthand experience in closing such gaps through her 18 years as a general dentist.
“The profession can be isolating because we are entrepreneurs who are also operators within the business, so our time is limited. We're trying to build our business, manage multiple family commitments and then pursue other opportunities. With so much to juggle, it can be difficult to find colleagues willing to take time to share their experiences.” Dr. Durgam said.
Being a woman in dentistry, Dr. Durgam has overcome some frustrating incidents related to gender. She spent four years as an associate in another dental office before launching her own, which she’s grown over 14 years in private practice. “I found, prior to being in my own office, that there were definitely times when gender roles came into play,” Dr. Durgam said, “for instance, when I worked for somebody else, they had female dentists treating children and the adults were seen by men.”
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Dr. Durgam has built a reputation for her deft use of social media to promote her practice, Aesthetic Dental, which has fed an active speaking avocation. She sees social media as a sort of great equalizer for dental practices and a way that women dentists can help level the playing field for opportunities. “One of the best ways to grow a dental practice is to develop your personal brand. Whether you are an employee dentist or own your own practice, your personal brand and reputation will always stay with you. As dentists, we tend to invest in our clinical skills, which change as technology advances, but outsource our brand and advertising to third parties. In the future, the longevity of a dentist's career will be predicated on his or her brand presence.”
Networking widely is something that Dr. Durgam recommends to women at every stage of their careers. “It’s important to never put networking on the back burner,” she said. “It’s easy to dismiss networking as a nonproductive activity when you could be spending time with family or reading a dental journal. The time to be networking is now. When a crisis or situation comes up where you need advice, you can't rely on others when you haven't been spending time building relationships. Also, without strong relationships, the willingness of the other person to help and give his or her very best is diminished.”
For more information on Dr. Durgam, visit her website. Ms. Williams is a Chicago-based freelance writer and editor who specializes in practice and research news for dental and medical professionals. She can be reached at writewoman12@hotmail.com.
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BMO Harris Bank, ADA collaborate to support women entrepreneurs
In a 2018 study on woman entrepreneurs, BMO Harris Bank identified sexism and harassment as barriers to advancement and highlighted a greater need for mentoring programs and networks. BMO is collaborating with the American Dental Association to offer a number of resources to encourage and support women dentists, including tailored networking events and shared online resources.
“Women don’t have much time,” said Mollie Gawronski, head of Business Relationship Sales with BMO Harris Bank. “We have busy lives, so it is important to find some people who you can actually connect with that will support growth toward achieving personal goals and business goals and make you feel like you’re part of a community. I think that’s what we’ve seen at the ADA, and we’re trying to work with them on building out different events … so that it feels like more than just networking.”
BMO Harris Bank, the ADA Member Advantage endorsed provider for practice financing, is collaborating with the ADA on developing programing for women dentists to foster connections that bear more fruit than typical networking.
The ADA has established a successful Women in Dentistry Leadership Series that has been presented at ADA 2017 in Atlanta and ADA 2018 in Honolulu. The program will again be presented at ADA FDI World Congress in San Francisco, Sept. 4-8. But ADA members are thinking even bigger. A motivated group of volunteers, partners and ADA staff members are joining forces to create year-round programming for the Women in Dentistry initiative, both nationally and with state and local societies. Along with other corporate supporters, BMO Harris will develop and present these events.
Ms. Gawronski states, “More than special member rates, we want to create a whole program to help dentists succeed. One facet of that program is supporting the ADA’s Women in Dentistry initiative.”
BMO Harris Bank offers all ADA members outstanding service and rates as the only practice financing provider recommended for ADA Members. “We’re the preferred lender for practice financing,” said Ms. Gawronski. “So, if there’s a dentist who wants to buy out his or her partner or if a dentist is looking to sell his or her practice, we could help that incoming dentist acquire, pay for and finance that. That’s what the My BMO relationship is.” ADA Members will receive special rate, at a .5% rate reduction on practice loans up to $1,000,000. Custom pricing is available for loans exceeding $1,000,000.
For more information about BMO Harris Bank visit www.bmoharris.com/dentists.
5 success strategies for new dentists
If you tell kids today that there was a time when the Internet didn’t exist, they’d be amazed. In fact, they’d wonder how you made it through life. Today’s dentists would be equally surprised to hear that there was a time when any dentist could open a practice and automatically be successful. Due to the low supply and high demand of dentists at that time, practice success was virtually guaranteed. However, even in this era of technological advancements, today’s new dentists are struggling and wondering if they’ll ever make it. Things may seem bleak, but if they gain a thorough understanding of today’s unique challenges they have the opportunity to prosper.
1. ANALYZE BEFORE PURCHASING. A new dentist should perform a complete business analysis before purchasing a practice. Almost everyone has a valuation performed when purchasing a practice. However, it’s important to conduct a complete and thorough analysis of the practice to determine future stability and growth. There is always some level of attrition when a practice is purchased. A business analysis looks at the current state of the practice and future trends that will help indicate the attrition rate. Practice valuations only look at the stated value of the practice today.
2. AFTER THE PURCHASE, GO SLOW. When a new dentist begins telling patients about all the dental treatment they need, things that weren’t done, things that weren’t done well, and so forth, it creates a cascade of patients leaving the practice. Build relationships. Get to know your patients. Gradually, everything else will fall into place.
3. FIND A MENTOR. Having a mentor is one of the most powerful strategies of highly successful people. One new dentist who I knew well had his father’s best friend — a CEO of a Fortune 500 company —a s a mentor who was able to help advise him on how to build a $1 million dental practice. Mentors can be friends, family, instructors, colleagues or outside advisors. What matters most is their ability to provide guidance on subjects that are of critical importance to the career of the new dentist. The right mentor can change the course of a new dentist’s career.
4. START SAVING EARLY. One dentist I knew told me that from the time he entered practice he would take his pocket change every night and throw it into a shoebox. He believed that if he started saving pennies, nickels and quarters he would be training himself to move on to dollars — hundreds and thousands. Over time, this new dentist was on track to be financially independent at the age of 52 with only a slightly above average production level practice. The point of the story is not to save your change. The point is to start saving early. According to the Levin Group Data Center the average retirement age of a dentist is now 70.8 years of age. We believe this will be increasing consistently until it reaches approximately 75 years of age. Saving early will create financial independence much earlier than the current average retirement age.
5. CREATE YOUR VISION. Give serious thought to your vision for the future. Some new dentists want to own their own practices. Others want to build a small group of practices. And there are a certain number of new dentists who simply want to find a job for a few years to pay off some debt. The important factor is to understand your vision of where you would like to be in five years. Consider where you see yourself in five years, where you want to live, whether you want to be an owner, an employee, or associate and how much debt you’re willing to accumulate. These factors should be carefully thought through before making career decisions, and should be revisited regularly to see if they are still on point for your life.
Read the original article here or contact the ADA Library & Archives for assistance.
Hidden treasure in your wallet: Credit card points can help you make the most of summer vacation
Vacation is more than an opportunity to relax, unwind and spend time making memories with family and friends. It is an essential part of living a healthy and balanced life. Time away from the office can help productivity in the long run as returning to work rested and refreshed improves mood, focus and stress levels.
The Framingham Heart Study – the largest and longest-running study of cardiovascular disease – found that men who didn’t take a vacation for several years were 30 percent more likely to have heart attacks than men who did not take time off. And women who took a vacation only once every six years or less were almost eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than women who vacationed at least twice a year.
If you’re dreaming of a weekend getaway or a big family vacation, the credit card points that you’ve racked up throughout the year can help you plan a memorable summer adventure while relieving some of the strain on your wallet.
In 2018, ADA Preferred Rewards Visa Signature cardholders redeemed over 4.2 million rewards points on airfare, hotel stays, rental cars, gift cards and cash back.
2018 ADA Preferred Rewards Visa Signature Reward Redemptions
Get the most value when redeeming your rewards points
Every one of the thousands of different credit cards has a distinct set of strengths and weaknesses. Credit cards affiliated with a specific store, airline or hotel chain will often give the best redemption value when bonus points are used within that brand family. For the almost 17,000 dentists who are ADA Preferred Rewards Visa Signature cardholders, the redemption value is weighted in favor of airfare on over 450 airlines with no blackout dates. The card offers redemption levels that enable members to receive tickets up to a value of $450 in exchange for 250 reward points, making the value of each dollar spent 1.8 times better than a straight $1 to one point redemption.
Dr. Melanie Armfield uses the credit card to pay office expenses and uses the points to travel. “We go to visit our exchange students all over Germany so we’ve been able to take the family there and often one or two of the tickets will be paid for with our ADA credit card [points.]” Hear more about her experience in this short video.
Healthy aging CE in San Francisco 
ADA FDI World Dental Congress Sept. 4-8 will offer attendees critical education content on some of the most important topics facing the dental profession today. Healthy aging courses to consider are:
- Managing and Preventing Dental Erosion in Children and Adults (#5505), CE Hours: 1
- Management of Root Caries in Older Adults (#6116), CE Hours: 1
Register today at ADA.org/meeting.
ADA CE Online Courses 
Need CE? ADA CE Online has hundreds of hours of CE that you can earn from the comfort of your own home. Too many to choose from? Take them all! Get unlimited access to the entire ADA CE online library, including JADA, for one year from purchase. Access anywhere, anytime. With new courses being added every month, you’ll never run out of education opportunities. Group subscriptions are also available, check it out now!
The consulting editor for JADA+ Scan — Healthy Aging is Linda C. Niessen, DMD, MPH; Dean and Professor; Nova Southeastern University College of Dental Medicine. |
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