Mark is the Principal of Funktional Tracker, a cloud-based behavioral tracking software for dental teams and is Lead Faculty for Clinical Education at Microdental Laboratories. He is a frequent lecturer at the Pankey Institute and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Detroit Mercy.
Mark’s favorite quote and why:
The ones that had deep meaning for me are probably the quotes that I may be heard, but didn’t learn them. I might have heard them go by, but didn’t really understand them. It wasn’t until a couple of quotes influenced me that I realized I was living them. And when you see yourself in that quote, and you are looking backwards at the quote you’ve heard, and you see your own experiences in it, it changes your ownership of that quote a little bit – because now, it’s you.
One of the first ones is I remember being down at the Pankey Institute back in the 80s, and somebody said, “If we think we’ve gotten a chance by coming down here to see further than someone else has, remember it’s only because we stood on the shoulder of giants. And its other people who have pioneered and experimented, and worked hard and evaluated, and fought the status quo, who have gotten us to this place where all we have to do is jump up on our shoulders and we can see further than someone else around us.”
What he does for the dental profession:
Mark T. Murphy, DDS, FAGD, is the Lead Faculty for Clinical Education at Microdental / DTI Dental Technologies Inc.. He also serves as an Adjunct Faculty at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Dentistry and the Pankey Institute where he also serves on the Board of Directors . He practices general dentistry on a limited basis in Rochester, Michigan and lectures internationally on Leadership, Practice Management, Communication, Case Acceptance, Planning, Occlusion and TMD. He is an informative and entertaining speaker, blending a stand-up style of humor and anecdotes with current evidence based research that you can take home and use in your practice right away.
Mark is also the Principal of the web-based application, Funktional Tracker. It is a behavior tracking app marketed towards dentists who wish to improve their practice. Through a combination daily user inputs and data synchronization with office management software, the application lets small practice owners track and correlate desirable behaviors of their staff (hygienists, dentists, and front desk administrators) a.k.a. Key Behavioral Indicators (KBIs) with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that measure the success of their practice.
Mark’s difficult time story:
When I went to Pankey in 1985, I was searching for answers. I wanted to be a better dentist, and I thought that if I went down there and they taught me how to be a better dentist clinically, that’s all I understood that they will teach. I didn’t know about the behavioral component of practice. I thought if I we’re a better dentist, more people will say yes, and my problems will go away.
And so I went down there and my wife didn’t really understand why I was going. When I went down there, I was a young dentist. I remember flying in really late on a Saturday night. (Class started on Sunday back then,) and I got in really, really late so I could sleep in the airport until 6 or 6:30am and then go and check in to the counter and save the $90 or whatever it was back then for one night. That was what $90 meant to me back then.
So I checked in and I go to this Pankey place and we learned all kind of great stuff, and I go back and I’ve got a very eager team. I worked with my wife and my wife’s best friend was my assistant. My wife is a hygienist. So it was very easy for me unlike others, to influence change when I got back. And so it was very easy for me to come back and talk about what I learned and they were eager to implement that. Our exams got better.
But you know, I was still struggling when patients weren’t always saying, “Yes.” So, I was really, really frustrated and I went to three, and I met two fantastic people: Paul Carol who is still a good friend of mine and an orthodontist now, and Dale Sorenson, who’s our director of education at Pankey. We became best friends at C3. We took some vacations together that summer and they all got excited about scheduling for it and I told them the bad news that I wasn’t coming back.
And they said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I’m not coming back to the next one.” And they said, “I don’t understand that. You got to come back.” And I said, “No, I’m not coming back.” They said, “Why not?” And I go, “Because it’s too hard.” It was too hard to be a really good dentist. It was too hard to want to do your best stuff for people, and have people say, “Is that covered by my insurance?” It was too hard to pour yourself into these treatment plans and then have patients say, “Just pull the tooth.” It was too hard, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I decided I’m not coming back.
They browbeat me, so I reluctantly decided to go to four. And on Thursday afternoon at 4:30, I finished an exercise called ‘The Functionally Generated Path’ and when we finished that exercise, 4:30, I got up and I walked across the street and I called my wife and I said, “Honey, we’re going to shoot the horses and we’re going to burn the wagons.” She said, “What the hell are you talking about?” I said, “When I come back, we are either going to do the dentistry the right way for people, or I’m not going to do dentistry at all.”
And I thought this was going to scare the hell out of her, because now we’re making pretty good money, we have kids, we have money for school, saved for college – all the economic support and stuff you start to surround yourself with. And then she said, “Thank god.” And I asked her if she was ok with it, and she said yes. She said, “You’ve been so conflicted because you know the right thing to do, but you just wouldn’t commit to it.” And I said to her, “Well, I didn’t understand. I couldn’t commit to it because I probably couldn’t believe that I could do that.” I didn’t believe I was worthy, maybe, of being that kind of a dentist; a dentist that maybe wasn’t going to participate with insurance; the dentist that maybe are going to do more comprehensive cases, because all that stuff was hard.
So I felt like I was exampling that, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears,” because here, these folks down at Pankey even beat me over the head for four trips, talking to me about all these wonderful things. And a lot of other people around me were getting me, but it took me four trips and in the fourth trip, hell, it took me to a Thursday for we’re doing the functionally generated path, and I just looked at how that maxillary lingual anterior surfaces are dictating the angulation and direction of little curvatures of the slews ways on the molars. Lights are just going off of my head and I’m seeing like, “This is the way you got to fix teeth. You can’t fix teeth any other way.” And if we can’t fix teeth this way, I’m going to see insurance, or pump gas or do something else for a living. And so we were ready.
When all of us are ready in life, no matter how many wonderful people you’re running around, when you are ready, you are going to hear things you didn’t know before. That’s my story.
What is concerning or exciting him right now in dentistry:
I’m pretty excited about some of digital applications were seeing today. When I think of how we thought about things and how we did things, just 10 or 20 years ago, I remember teaching with Keith Thornton, and he taught me (this has to be 25 years ago), how to make a TAP® oral appliance. A very different TAP appliance than what you’ll see today. And I made those back then for some patients that has snoring and apnea problems. And I don’t even know what the hell we were doing. There was no titration, there were no sleep studies, there were no take home studies – we were winging it. We knew we were on the right path.
Now we fast forward to today, and I lecture for Micro. They just came out with a really smaller appliance, which has a lot more room for the tongue, has good retention, has a smaller dorsal fin on the upper and lower. And they are done by scanning the models or scanning an impression and they are made digitally. So the thing is milled out and polished, and delivered. And if you lose one or break one, you just call them up and they ship you a replacement piece. And it’s exactly the one that came off the line before. That’s what we can do with e.Max, and Zirconia, and Press and we can print waxings, and digital scanning, and 3D CT Scanning. The stuff we can do is unbelievable and that is so exciting. The precision of which we can understand, the studies that have been done with regard to occlusion, muscle function – it’s exciting.
What concerns me is the mountain of debt that a young dentist is burdened with when they come out of school.
The best advice Mark has ever received:
Jack Shirley, a good friend of mine from San Antonio, Texas, he said, “Sometimes, you just got to build a bridge, and get over it.”
What that means is sometimes, you’ll make a mistake; you’ll do something wrong, you’ll say something wrong, you’ll embarrass yourself or you’ll make decisions that’s untoward for some reason, and you didn’t do it meanly or intentionally. Shit happens, right? And so you wake up and you dwell on it, and you dwell at it and you become immobilized – emotionally and physically. And it’s unhealthy. And Jack says, “Sometimes, you just got to build a bridge, and get over it.” Some stuff you just got to move on.
The one habit that contributes to his success:
I’ve developed a real knack for stepping outside the box of dentistry, and learning stuff that I can bring back inside the box.
Management or marketing pearl (tip):
On a clinical standpoint, I remember how strong it was for me when they made us trim our own dies. When you have to trim your own die, you see everything – and your everything gets better.
Technology or procedure that is exciting Mark right now:
Funktional Tracker – www.funktionaltracker.com
Internet / App resource that Mark feels is awesome:
Mark’s book recommendation:
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change – Steve R. Covey
- Hardcover edition can be purchased on Amazon here.
- Paperback edition can be purchased on Amazon here.
- Kindle edition can be purchased on Amazon here.
His recommendation for those who are about to start new or restart:
To somebody younger or somebody who is relocating, I would say, make sure that you have a really, really clear vision of the dream that you had about how you wanna practice. And even though you might have to forge a path that doesn’t look like a straight line from here to there, never, ever give up on that dream. Find a way to tack and tack back, and always find a way to keep that dream in sight, so that whatever compromises you make is always constructed towards that dream.
And it’s going to take some time, and you are going to have some lefts and some rights and some easts and some wests, but never ever let go of how you wanna do things in life with your family, with your friends, with your spirit, with your higher being you believe in, with your practice – with everything. Never lose sight of that vision and always track back towards that. That’s your waypoint.
Dr. Mark T. Murphy can be reached at:
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Nicholas Nahernak
Hi Mark. You were a few years ahead of me at UD undergrad. I remember having conversations with you, I think you worked for Dr Page. Anyways I have signed up for a couple of classes you were to give and they were both cancelled. Just got mailing on SpringSession but my kids are all grown up no reason Togo to Wolf Lodge and rest of program doesn’t interest me. Could you please send me list of classes you are scheduled to teach would really love to hear what you have to say. Thanks