Dr. Gary Dewood shares his insights, three decades of dental practice, teachings, and optimism about the future of dentistry. He sincerely believe that every dentist that takes good care of his patients helps the profession as a whole and believes his patients have gotten the best out of him. His vision today is to help dentists help their patients get the best out of them too.
Favorite quote:
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be” – Abraham Lincoln
“I can’t change everything around me, not even everything that happens within my office. I find it very thoughtful and relative to how I look at life. Usually dentists would say they work for their patients, but the truth I believe in is, that I am working for the people in my office and controlling what happens around me is really based on how I can react to things. To simply put it across is that, Stuff Happens!”
His main concern for dentistry as a profession:
Fresh out of college dentists now have just a little less room to really think about dentistry with all that burden on their shoulders and they significantly have to stay busy to be able to get past that initial stage of their lives as a dental practitioner.
As this is faced by more and more people we are going to see the large group dentistry being backed by specific insurance companies. This will immediately limit the patient’s ability of making a choice for themselves.
The best advice he ever received:
From his Grandfather, Joseph Altman: “Whatever you do you have to find something you love, and the moment you do you will never have to work.”
Exciting technology or procedure:
In the next 10 years, most dentists graduating will have Cad Cam in their offices and they are going to be making stuff as well as taking impressions.
Even in the schools today the way they are learning to prep is using that technology. It is so nice not to have to go to different faculty members and it helps you to learn better preps.
The other change we are going to see is a lot more of the big group of dentists working together and they are going to be more efficient. Even in a local community dentists will pair up to share the practice premises to make it more efficient.
What he would really like to see in his lifetime is to be able to pull a sample of s stem cell from the patient and make an implant after growing a root. Its being done in some animals right now.
His main clinical/management recommendation:
If you want to fundamentally change the nature of your practice help the people that you work with, build their careers not their jobs. There has to be time when it has to be more about them than about you.
His book recommendation:
- Outliers: The Story of Success -by Malcolm Gladwell
- Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice – by Matthew Syed
His technology / app resource:
- Spear Education website here: www.speareducation.com”An information website that would allow anyone to learn technical skills and hear about management things if you want to. To include your team, we have whole section for team development”
Dr. Dewood can be reached at:
- E-mail: gdewood@speareducation.com
- Website: www.speareducation.com