It was more of a conceptual analogy in the sense that when we are in an abusive relationship, it may beat us up emotionally or physically– but we can’t leave! We are somehow drawn to it, and it takes a lot of strength an courage to leave the situation. We did have some mean teachers in dental school, and many students felt abused by some level of bullying culture, but that was not so much what I was referring to. It’s more the concept. I felt beat up by the career but couldn’t leave it. Does that makes sense? I’ve also compared leaving dentistry to leaving a cult. Not that dentistry is a cult, but that the leaving is like leaving a cult. 🙂

Wow, thanks so much for the kind words Gerrie. I appreciate your thoughts. It’s always fun to have this discussion with dentists but even more fun to enlighten non-dental peeps! It is amazing to be able to help others in a way that fulfills me too– I never felt that in dentistry.

Hi Gerrie, Great question. I thought that too! Dentistry is actually a very stressful profession. A lot of dentists (not all) are people-pleasers and feel a lot of pressure to make their patients happy. Even when they do their best work, things sometimes go wrong, and it’s very hard when our patients get disappointed/angry. The amazing super power that most of us have is that we never let our patients know that. We are so good at making our patients feel comfortable and enjoy the experience (despite what some may think,) that our patients don’t really see how hard we are working. I think that’s why the career always looks so great from the outside. Oh, and patients come to us all the time and say they hate the dentist. It’s pretty tough emotionally to hear how much the people you spend your life helping “hate the dentist.” Thanks for asking that.

Thank you so much Kim!

Thank you Dana B! I always learn from you.