A loss of autonomy combined with financial and professional burdens could lead to burnout among dental professionals, according to David Blanchard, DDS.
Dr. Blanchard, of Riverside Family Dental in Menomonee Falls, Wis., recently spoke with Becker's about how burnout is affecting the dental industry.
Editor's note: This response was lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How is burnout affecting the dental industry?
Dr. David Blanchard: Burnout in dentistry arises from a number of factors: working so hard that your home life suffers, high levels of sustained mental and emotional stress, physical pain, negative attitudes of patients and employees, struggling to make ends meet, student loan debt, poor education, lowering reimbursements from insurance companies and lack of professional autonomy (because of a mafia-style takeover by shadowy groups with incredibly deep pockets).
Many dentists feel woefully unprepared coming out of dental school, and they are strapped with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt at high interest rates on day one. They enter a profession that has dwindling opportunities for unique experiences — the corporate/private equity turnover is stripping many of us of our individual dental identities and turning us into commodities to be traded by corporations. Dentists who aren't even confident about treatment planning are being held to production quotas and are being pushed to bill more, and often the methods of doing so seem ethically questionable. When they don't meet quotas, they don't hit bonuses, and their pay suffers. This is a sad system. It motivates dentists for the wrong reasons; it's not good for the patients or the dentists. In order to reduce burnout, we need to make no compromises when it comes to dictating autonomy in our profession. One thing is clear to me: When you take opportunities and decision-making abilities away from people and saddle them with seemingly insurmountable financial and professional burdens, their reaction will not be a positive one.